


It's Better to Burn than to Fade Away

by Nears_my_boytoy



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 2019 reddie, A lot of timeskips, Depression, Eddie has anxiety, Eddie is best boy, Eddie is out and Richie is repressed, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Self Harm, Strangers to Lovers, Talk of Suicide, Trauma, adult reddie, conversion therapy, fics through phonecalls, no pennywise, they didn't grow up together, they don't previously know each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-25 02:36:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nears_my_boytoy/pseuds/Nears_my_boytoy
Summary: Richie Tozier, at age 26, with his unsuccessful comedy career in shambles, his non-existent love life, and his severe depression and deep self-loathing, is ready to end it all. But a perfectly timed call from a wrong number changes everything.





	1. It's Better to Leave than to be Replaced

**Author's Note:**

> This fic deals with a lot of deep shit, such as depression, PTSD, anxiety, self-harm, and conversion therapy. Please be cautious before reading.
> 
> With that being said, I've never been sent to conversion therapy, nor has anybody else I know. Everything in this fic is based on various forms of media revolving around conversion therapy, interviews with survivors, and my own research. Not all the details will be 100% accurate.
> 
> This idea came to mind because in the book, Richie's family is catholic. And with Richie being canonly gay in the movie, I thought that if his Catholic parents had found out, they likely would have sent him to conversion therapy. And this could explain why Richie is so repressed, still, even as a 40-year-old adult.

In his shitty, run-down apartment in an even shitter neighbourhood in New York, Richie sat on the ripped couch he'd bought a thrift store and he planned how he was going to kill himself. 

A few hours later, after a swift trip to the hardware store, he was standing on the roof of his apartment building. The thing about somewhere like New York, is that even the shittiest apartment complexes were at least 5 stories tall. His happened to be 8. It was ample distance for him to hang from the rope he was fastening to a pipe, tying knots he'd researched on Youtube to make it so it would hold his weight when he jumped. Even if it broke, he'd plummet, and he'd die anyway. 

His mother's text was still sitting, unanswered on his screen. _How are you doing, sweetie? _She'd asked him the same thing a few days prior. 

It was funny, really, how for as long as Richie could remember growing up, his parents hadn't given a damn about what he was doing or who he was with, he'd come and go from his house without either of them batting an eye. No, they didn't care about him, until they had figured out he had grown into something they'd rather be dead than admit to being the parents of. And it was such a drastic change, since then, his mother texted him at least thrice a week to check on him, to make sure he was still hanging in there, that he wasn't spiralling. He was spiralling, but not in the way she cared about. His father hadn't spoken to him in years. 

He was staring at his phone, resolute, that he wasn't going to answer her text. She would call him until he assured her that all was well if he didn't answer within the hour, but this time, it wouldn't matter. She could find out on the news. He was staring at his phone, the screen had gone black after a while without touching it when it lit up with a call. It was a number Richie didn't recognize, he answered. 

"Hello?" 

"Oh. Um. I must have the wrong number." The voice says. It's light and breezy and unmistakably male. 

"Must be." Richie agrees. He could've just left it at that, but he doesn't. "If your clear disappointment upon hearing my voice wasn't any indication." 

The man laughs, one quick; "Hah!" And then he says "I'm not disappointed! Just, surprised, that's all." 

Richie is surprised that this guy hasn't just bid him farewell and hung up. Beyond that, he's even going so far as to defend himself to him. 

"Relax, being infuriatingly disappointing is my specialty these days," Richie says, he delivers it like he'd be grinning when he said it, even though the words make him want to do anything else but smile. "Anyway," he says, realizing how self-deprecating that statement is. Who is he to drop all of his shit on some random stranger? "I hope you actually get your number right this time. Adios." And then he takes the phone from his ear and hangs up. 

And that's the last he thinks that he'll hear of that. He sighs deeply through his nose, running his fingers through his hair as he contemplates whether his neck would break quickly, or if he'd be dangling for a while, struggling to breathe and awaiting death. But then his phone rings in his hand again. He thinks to himself how unlucky it is that everybody wants to call him now of all times as he looks at the screen, it's a number he doesn't recognize. There would be no way that his jumbled brain would recognize it's the same number that called him just a moment earlier. 

"Hello?" He answers. He can't keep the sigh out of his words even if he were actively trying. 

"Hey, uh, me again." 

_Fuck, it's the same dude from before. _

"I think you might have dyslexia," Richie says. 

"No, I called on purpose. I, uh- are you okay?" 

The question catches Richie right off guard. He pauses, considering. Obviously, the answer is no. But he shouldn't say that. He should say "yes, my jokes are just really depressing and not funny and that's why nobody wants to give me any gigs and why I'm looking down at the exact spot where I'm going to go splat if the rope around my neck breaks when I jump off this roof." 

Well, maybe not that. 

"Do you usually check up on everybody you butt-dial?" 

He doesn't laugh like Richie thought he might. With his luck, this guy is perceptive and actually noticed Richie avoiding the question. 

"Just you." He says after a beat. His voice is soft, calming, though it has a buoyant edge to it at the same time. Richie's heart slams against his chest for seemingly no reason at all. "I couldn't just go about the rest of my day after what you said. You sounded so sad." 

_A good samaritan, just what I need right now. No, really. _

"Well you have nothing to fear, I am perfectly un-sad, and will let you get back to your day in peace-" 

"Wait!" Richie waits. Nothing else comes. 

"What?" He finally asks. 

"I didn't actually have anything to say. I just didn't want you to hang up on me." The voice says. 

When was the last time anybody had cared about Richie completely unprompted? He couldn't remember, couldn't remember past the texts making sure he hadn't gone backwards, that he was still on the right track, and it never felt like real concern. The concern towards him from a complete stranger who only knows him by his voice makes him want to curl up and sob. But he doesn't. He doesn't say anything for a while. What does he say? He has nothing good to say to this guy, no good news about his wellbeing, and he's never been particularly good at lying. But it can't be that hard if it's just his voice over the phone. 

"Don't you have better things to do with your time?" Richie asks, finally. 

"Don't you have better things to say than just trying to get me off your case?" The voice shoots back. Richie is momentarily impressed before he speaks again. "You sound like you think that every single thing is more important than you are." 

Richie says nothing. After a while, he hears; "Am I right?" 

"No." The lie sounds strangled in Richie's throat. He clears it. _Don't cry, don't cry. "_Just that it's sort of weird you're so hung up on my wellbeing, you don't even know me." 

"Well, what's your name then? Mine's Edward, but I hate the shit out of that, so I just go by Eddie." 

"Richie." His name leaves his mouth before he even thinks about it. It's like this guy, Eddie, is just pulling the truth right out of him and he can't do a single thing about it. "It's short for Richard, but, well, you know." 

"Richard, yeah that's disgusting. No offence, I like Richie better." 

Against every single intent in his body, Richie smiles. "Yeah well, at least it isn't _Edward._ Did your folks hate you?" 

"Did yours?" Eddie asks. And Richie knows what he's getting at. He's trying to ask him things about him, trying to pinpoint where his trauma comes from. And it's not going to work, Richie decides right then and there. 

_Oh no, you don't. It's too late to save me. I gotta cut this guy loose. _

But it doesn't stop his mind from answering _no, _anyway. 

"Did I seriously get stuck talking to a therapist?" 

Eddie laughs. "Nothing like that, I'm just a driver, I swear." And Richie is thinking of ways, excuses to end this conversation when Eddie says; "But my friends tell me I'm really good at telling when somebody needs help. And I give some wicked advice." 

"Sounds like you're wasting your time driving people around," Richie says lightly, still racking his brain for a seamless way to hang up while not alerting Eddie to his emotional peril. 

"And Richie," Eddie says, "I can tell that you're in need of help." 

And the way Eddie says his name makes his heart jump up into his throat. The way he says it scares him. This concern, the effort, all of it, scares Richie so much that he barely thinks about it when he presses the 'end call' button and sticks his phone in his sweater pocket. A few seconds go by before he hears it ringing again, so he sticks his hands in his pocket and turns the ringer off. Then it starts vibrating. Richie ignores it. A few minutes go by, and the phone won't stop vibrating. And Richie misses the sound of Eddie's voice, oddly enough, but he holds steadfast that it's better off this way. He can't get Eddie caught up in a case like his. Eddie will never really know what ended up happening to him, anyways. Richie squeezes his phone in his hand, willing Eddie to stop calling him. It's easier to ignore someone when they aren't trying so hard to care. 

_It's better this way. _

After a minute or two, finally, Eddie stops calling him. Richie breathes a sigh of relief, his conscience weighing less heavily. He pulls his phone out, slowly, daring a peek at his screen. He doesn't see the 11 missed calls first. He sees the text notification from an unfamiliar number, but at this point, he can easily guess who the text is from. Against his better judgement, he opens it. 

**This isn't doing anything to make me any less worried about you than I was before. **

A minute later; 

**You've got your read receipts on. I know you see this. **

A few seconds later;

**Please say something. **

Richie can't think of a single thing to say. Why is this guy so intent on making sure he's okay? It's so hard to actively bring harm to yourself when there's somebody pestering you to tell them every little thing that's wrong. It's all so much easier when there's nobody to care about you. And until 20 minutes ago, Richie had had exactly that. 

**What do you want from me? **Richie decides upon asking. 

The reply is almost instant. 

**I want you not to do what you're thinking of doing. **

**And I also want you to be okay. **

_A bit late for that. _

Richie decides to sit while he thinks of what to say. He's been standing, overlooking the edge of this building for a little over 45 minutes, and the balls of his feet are protesting his weight distribution. He sits on the edge, staring at his phone screen. The noose isn't around his neck, but he thinks of putting it on, slipping easily off of this balcony and plummeting. But he doesn't. He sits with his feet dangling, so dangerously close to falling, willing himself to think of something to say. 

**And what if I'm not? **Richie sends it before he can take it back. No more pretending like what he said over the phone didn't mean something, didn't point Eddie in the direction of his obvious mental breakdown. **You can't take that on yourself. **

Richie watches the typing bubbles pop up, disappear, pop up again, for a full minute before Eddie sends his reply; **What's the harm in letting me try? **

_What's the harm, _Richie thinks, _is that you're already getting to my guilty conscience. _

Richie has no idea who Eddie is beyond his name and that he's a nosy fucker, and yet he's already feeling sick at the idea of going through with his own suicide after Eddie's putting in so much effort to deter it. This man who he doesn't know is making him second guess this plan more than any internet forums were. 

**You'd be wasting your time. **

**It's my time. **Eddie replies. **So let me waste it. **

_Stop it. Stop, stop it. _

Richie takes his face in his hands and rubs his eyes, _hard. _Puts his glasses back on. He should just block Eddie's number, end this right here and now. But he's so physically ill at the thought of Eddie, realizing what Richie had done, taking it upon himself that he wasn't enough to stop him. This random man is making Richie seriously second-guess himself, at least for the time being. But if not now, then when? What if he loses the nerve he'd built up, what if in a few days he's too chickenshit to go through with it like he's so close to doing now? 

It's all so much more painful when somebody wants to insist they care. And so much more frustrating, because Richie truly wants someone to care, he really does, but he knows that Eddie won't give a damn about him anymore beyond their text conversation when he's satisfied with the outcome. It seems a waste to keep himself alive when he knows he'll be in the exact same emotional state tomorrow. 

His phone vibrates again, making him realize it's been a few minutes since he last answered. 

**Just tell me what's wrong. There's no harm in telling me, a total stranger, right? **

Richie sort of agrees with that logic. But there's something completely unattractive about being vulnerable with anybody, stranger or not. It's easier to type to him instead of talking, it's easier to let the words out through his fingers and not his voice. The tears can fall silently when he types and nobody can hear what it means in his voice. 

**What do you want to know? **He types. **My life doesn't and will continue to amount to nothing, I've got no friends, no living relatives, everybody who I think might be interested in me always jumps ship once they meet me in person, and oh yeah, I'm an abomination. **

He deletes the last part, not wanting to explain what it means, he figures everything else is good enough, and sends. He doesn't stare at the phone this time, anxious for Eddie's reply. He gets one way faster than he would've thought. 

**You do now. **

**Do what? **

**Have a friend. **

Richie laughs outwardly at this. **For now. **

**What do you mean? **Eddie replies. He even sends a confused emoji to boot. 

**You shouldn't get caught up with me. You'll decide I'm not worth it. I'd prefer if that were sooner rather than later. **

Eddie's reply is swift. **That's not happening. You're stuck with me now, Richie. **

It's getting cold out now. Richie feels the cold right through the pullover he's wearing, the breeze wafting up against his stomach. He takes one last look down below him, standing up, and he decides it's time to go home. He'll try this again tomorrow. 

Richie and Eddie text back and forth all evening, Richie reluctantly tells Eddie all the pitiful details of his life, or at least enough details that'll keep him happy. He doesn't reveal everything, some things are just too pathetic to talk about, even in text form. 

It's around midnight when Richie falls asleep on his couch, phone perched beside his head, glasses sitting crooked on his face. The phone had been vibrating for a good half hour before it actually wakes Richie up. He stirs, picking it up, and his vision is hazy so he can't see the caller ID, but he picks it up, and he doesn't say anything for a moment. 

"Hello? Rich?" It's Eddie. Richie groans sleepily in reply. He hears Eddie exclaim "thank fuck" underneath his breath. "Jesus Christ, Richie, are you okay? You haven't answered my texts." 

"I fell asleep," Richie says breezily. His eyes are heavy with exhaustion. Even as tired as he is, he still says; "You sound like my girlfriend." 

"I didn't know you had a girlfriend," Eddie says. His voice is uncharacteristically quiet. His voice no longer sounds pressed and desperate. 

"I don't," Richie replies, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. _You sound like my mother, though._ "It's a joke. Ever heard of one?" 

"Hardy har," Eddie says sarcastically. "Where are you right now?" 

"Uh, in my house?" Richie replies, confused. Eddie is silent for a good minute, Richie is too tired to think too much about how it's because he's listening to the background noise to make sure what Richie says is true. 

"Alright," Eddie says, satisfied. I'll let you get back to sleep now. Sweet dreams." 

_What a... soft thing to say. _Eddie hangs up before Richie can say anything in reply. He is wonderfully perplexed, but not enough to not fall back asleep the second his back hits the mattress full of springs. It's two hours later, at precisely 3:42 when Richie wakes up again to his phone vibrating. 

"Mhm-what?" 

"Oh, good. You're alive." Eddie sounds relieved. 

"Is that why you keep calling me?" Richie asks. "To make sure that I'm alive?" 

"I don't find you particularly trustworthy yet, Rich." 

Richie sighs heavily into the phone. "I'd want to kill myself less if I could sleep for a few hours without interruption." 

"Dually noted. Goodnight, again." And Eddie hangs up. It takes Richie a few more minutes this time to fall back asleep, but eventually, he does, his phone cradled in his palm. 

It's 5:34 when the next call comes. Richie jerks awake, his phone having stuck itself to his cheek in his sleep, vibrating against his skin. 

"I swear to fucking god," He answers, not caring if it isn't Eddie who's calling him, he'll be dead by tomorrow anyhow, but it's most certainly Eddie who must be calling at this ungodly hour. 

"Hi again." Is Eddie's reply. His voice is deeper, several octaves in fact, that the sound of his voice makes Richie feel like he's just been entirely undressed. 

"I'm alive, congratulations! Please stop calling me." 

"Not likely." And he hears Eddie yawning. 

"Why are you awake?" Richie asks, annoyed. 

There's silence on the other end. After a moment, Eddie says; "I had an alarm." 

"What the fuck are you waking yourself up at this hour for?" Richie can't think of a single goddamn thing he'd ever even _consider_ waking up this early in the morning for. 

"To make sure that you're okay." _Wait, he's been setting alarms to wake himself up just to call and check on me? _"And now that I have, I'm going to go back to sleep." 

"You shouldn't tell me that you're going to sleep, not smart." Richie jokes, trying to override the insistent pounding of his heart once he'd realized Eddie was awake purely because of him. 

"Fuck, Richie! That's not funny!" And Richie laughs at Eddie's disapproval, and Eddie says; "I'm serious! There's no way I can go back to sleep now!" 

"I sincerely wish that was my problem," Richie replies, sarcastically. He hears Eddie groan on the other end. 

"Do we have to hang up?" his voice is soft when he asks, it makes Richie swallow thickly. "I mean, you can mute me, but I'd feel better going to sleep knowing you were on the other end." 

This request should be weird, Eddie has known him for less than a few hours, it sounds like something you'd say to your boyfriend. _Girlfriend_ Richie corrects. The word leaves a bad taste in his mouth every time he applies it to himself. 

"Richie?" his voice sounds almost nervous. Richie must not have answered for a bit. "Yeah," he replies, clearing his throat. "Okay." 

"Okay." He can almost swear that he can hear the smile in Eddie's voice when he says it. They don't say goodnight, but he can hear Eddie shuffling around in his bed, likely getting into a comfy position in his blankets. The sound makes Richie's stomach flip uncomfortably, listening to a man in his bed, and Eddie said he could mute him, but he doesn't. He should, but he doesn't. After a while, Richie can hear the soft sounds of Eddie's breathing shallowing out, he likely fell asleep again. And Richie lays in his own bed, hearing the voices telling him he's reverting, he needs to make an emergency call to Chris tomorrow, so he doesn't keep going down this road, listening to another man in his bed while he's in his own. He knows it's just as bad as sexual intent. But he can't bring himself to mute Eddie, and the next morning, after he'd dozed off to the sound of Eddie's breathing, he didn't call Chirs, and he ignored his mother's calls. 

The next few days go on like that, Eddie calls Richie every night before he goes to bed, and they fall asleep to the sound of each other's breathing. Eddie doesn't hang up on Richie unless he absolutely has to, still on call when he's driving people around during his shifts, he mutes Richie so his customers don't know he's on a call, but every time he drops them off he unmutes himself to ask if Richie's okay. And he chats with Richie until he has another person to drive, and repeat. 

The only time Richie gets to himself is between Eddie's driving, and he relishes in the customers that have him driving more than a half-hour to any given place. Richie uses that time sitting in the bathtub, one that hasn't been scrubbed in what looks like centuries. But he doesn't care, because he's just making it dirty anyway. He sits in lukewarm water, he hardly ever uses hot water when bathing, it stings more, and he watches the water around him turn red. Sometimes Eddie will come back when he's still in the tub, his voice blaring from his phone on the edge of the sink. 

"I'm just making lunch," Richie said once, the other time he said he was making his bed. Something he never did, and he hardly ever made himself lunch either, but it satisfied Eddie, and Richie nodded or hummed while Eddie told him about his day. Eddie really liked to talk, and Richie really loved to listen. Eddie still asked him about himself, to which Richie gave very vague answers. Eddie seemed satisfied to just talk to Richie in any context, which made Richie feel like he could both laugh and vomit. 

One day, it was a week or two later, Eddie asked him. 

"What do you look like, Rich?" 

"Like shit," Richie replied, without missing a beat. Eddie didn't laugh.

"I'm being serious, I want to visualize who I'm talking to." Neither of them had ever mentioned just video chatting, and if Eddie brought it up, Richie would promptly shut it down. 

"You're the one who insists on talking to random people you butt dial." 

"Oh my g- for the last time, I didn't butt dial you! I don't even have back pockets!" Eddie snaps at him. Richie stands in the middle of his living room, phone in hand. He looks out the window, wondering if anybody has found his rope yet. He can buy more if it's not there. Whenever Eddie grows bored of him, he'll go right back up to the roof and off himself the way he should have before. Every day he's still alive is more painful than the last, the only thing that keeps him here is Eddie. Eddie, who wouldn't be able to sleep at night if he knew Richie had killed himself between phone calls. 

"So?" Richie blinked, he had spaced out and hadn't replied again. "So?" He repeated, mockingly. He heard Eddie heavy sigh right into the microphone. The hair on the back of Richie's neck stood. 

"I'll tell you what I look like, but then you have to tell me too," Eddie said. Richie hummed in agreement, he didn't really plan on actually keeping up his end of this bargain, but he was curious to be able to visualize who was on the other side of his phone. 

"I'm 5'9, it's average height for adult males, just so we're clear. My eyes are brown, so is my hair, it's short, straight, I like to comb in but it's naturally curly. My face is sort of long, I guess? My eyes are a weird distance from each other." He paused. Richie was caught onto every word he said, building a person in his mind from his descriptions. "I don't know what else to say. Your turn." 

Richie took a breath. "I'm 6'3," he said, easy enough. 

"Okay. And?" Eddie pressed. 

"My hair is... dark brown. My eyes are brown. I have glasses. Can I be done now?" 

"What's your hair look like?" Eddie asked. Richie's cheeks burned at the question, he wasn't sure why, nor why describing himself was so utterly painful. If Eddie grew bored of babysitting him, a voice through a phone, that was one thing. If he knew what he looked like, visualized him, and didn't like it, that was something else entirely. 

"It's curly. Grown out a bit, neck-length." _My cheeks are too caved and my eyes are too big and I grow hair everywhere and it's disgusting and I can't wear T-shirts because my arms are disgusting and all of my pants hang weird off of my hips and I'm so undeniably ugly I know every description of me never does just how truly disgusting I am justice, and I-_

"Richie?" 

Richie blinked, "Sorry," he said, the first thing he thought of. 

"It's okay, you just kind of, went quiet for a bit. Are you okay?" Eddie asked. Richie shook his head, but he said: "Yeah, I'm good." He had a headache. Sometimes he got dizzy when he shed so much blood, and a headache followed soon after. It was more of a frequent occurrence in the last few weeks. 

"I want to meet you," Eddie said, and Richie damn near dropped his phone. _No way _was his first thought. Richie hadn't seen another face in close to three weeks, had only spoken to Eddie through his phone. If Eddie met him, he would surely decide Richie wasn't worth it. Richie already knew it, but it was too much to think of Eddie realizing it too, too much to think of the disgusted facial expression he'd make when he saw him. 

"I know you're already formulating a plan to say no, but hear me out," Eddie said before Richie could reply. "We can meet anywhere you want, even if it's just for a moment, just once. Please, Richie." The way Eddie said his name made Richie's heart swell, and he took several deep breaths to try and calm his heartbeat down. _This feeling is for a woman, this feeling is for a woman. _He chanted it to himself over and over again. Because although Richie didn't like to reveal too much about himself, Eddie had somehow coaxed quite a bit out of him anyway. How he'd been diagnosed with depression, how in-debt he was, how he hadn't eaten anything but microwavable noodles for weeks. But there were some things Eddie didn't know, how his mother had hidden his medication, insisting it would stunt his progress, make him forget what he'd been taught, how there were multiple videos of him on youtube, on stage, shaking as he tried to make the audience laugh with the only jokes he could think of and they'd all booed at him. 

But Eddie didn't know a lot of things, the thing Richie couldn't say out loud without dry heaving. If he met Eddie, he was so sure that Eddie would know immediately, would see it on him like a plague. Would spit on him, tell him he was disgusting, tell him that he never thought of him like _that, __you disgusting f_-

"I want to know that you're okay, to see it with my own eyes. Please." Eddie was begging him at this point. And even with every voice in Richie's voice screaming to tell him no, he couldn't say no to Eddie with his voice like that. He couldn't say no to Eddie then, either, couldn't off himself like he should have when Eddie had said he wouldn't be able to handle the guilt. 

"Okay," he said. 

As much as Richie hated the idea of meeting in a public place where anybody could see him, could look at him and know what he was, he hated, even more, the idea of meeting Eddie in his apartment, it was a complete mess, and from what he'd learned about the other man thus far, it was that Eddie liked neat and clean. And if he were to meet Eddie at his place, he didn't know where any of the exists were, that thought had made him shudder even though it wasn't cold, and so Richie had decided the Starbucks directly across the block from his apartment complex would be the best place to meet. He knew where both exists were, the route home, a shortcut route home, and another route home, though that one was longer. Just in case. 

For the first time in weeks, he had taken care to wash his clothes, he had taken a shower instead of a bath, he had tried to rope in his curls as much as he possibly could, they'd become even more unmanageable after he'd given himself a sloppy trim, twisting in any which way over his face, but at least now it wasn't grossly long and unwashed. He wore a pair of jeans he'd had since he was a teenager, he fit into them now having lost weight, faded black with a hole in the knee from wear. He spent far too long in the mirror comparing two Hawaiin style button-ups, one that was navy blue covered with pineapples, the other a light orange decorated in cartoon dogs and string lights. He went with the navy blue one, buttoning it overtop his white T-shirt, grabbing his favourite jacket to go overtop, he never went anywhere without that jacket, the sleeves were long enough that they hid his fingertips if he wasn't stretching. His sleeves wouldn't ride up. 

Richie couldn't place why he was so concerned over the way he would look to Eddie, besides the fear of abandonment from a man he hadn't known three full weeks, there was something more than that, something he couldn't think about, he was afraid of it, afraid of what it meant, afraid of what that made him, afraid of, most of all, how Eddie would think of him. 

They were supposed to meet at 3 pm, in between when Eddie had driving gigs. Richie stood on his balcony at 2:54, watching the people go by the building and seeing if he could pinpoint anyone as Eddie. From what he knew about Eddie, he thought that he would be a person who shows up early for everything. But after people watching, at 2:58, Richie decided he couldn't put it off any longer and left the building, taking another route as to not walk directly across the street, in case Eddie saw him before he was ready to be seen. When he walked in, there weren't many people, and he was sure that none of them were Eddie. He sat himself on a chair opposite another chair with a small table between them, crossing his legs, hunching his shoulders, trying to fall into himself as much as he could. He looked around the place, trying to look like he wasn't looking like he wasn't expecting someone. 

He heard a car door shut distantly, and when he looked to his left, out the window, he saw a man exiting a black car, a car that had been sitting in the parking lot since Richie had been people-watching. He had thought that there was nobody in it, but whoever owned it was now walking in. And as soon as Richie saw him, a few feet in front of him, he knew that this man was Eddie. 

He was small, his hair was dark and neatly combed, he wore dress pants and a blue collared shirt with a darker blue knitted sweater overtop. And he only looked around for a moment before he spotted Richie, walking towards him. He wasn't even two feet into his walk over when he started smiling. Richie's heart stuttered, he couldn't do anything, he was stuck to his spot. He just stared as Eddie approached. It was then he realized just how attached he'd grown to this stranger's voice on the other end of his phone, because now that he could see Eddie, truly, in the flesh, it was harder to pretend he didn't feel something he wasn't supposed to. 

Eddie stopped and stood for a moment, his smile was almost infectious, his face was the brightest of anybody Richie had ever seen. It was like he didn't remember he was supposed to sit until a few moments went by. He sat in the opposite chair, he sat differently than Richie. He put his elbows on his spread knees and watched Richie, face in his hands. Up close, Richie could see the freckles along his neck, dipping below his shirt collar. 

Neither of them said anything for a while. Eddie just stared at him, like he was in shock, and Richie squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze. 

"Eddie," Richie said, finally. At that moment, he didn't feel like bugging Eddie about how he was staring, he found his mouth to be dry, the only thing he could think of saying was Eddie's name. to make sure it was really him.

"Richie," Eddie said like he had been waiting for Richie to speak that whole time. Then he leaned back, his finding it's way to the back of his neck. The position gave Richie ample room to see the growing muscles along Eddie's arms, even through the fabric of his sweater. "Sorry, I know you would've liked to not be the first one here. I just, I have a bit of social anxiety, I wanted to make sure you actually showed up so I didn't look stupid sitting here." 

"Were you sitting in your car 'till you saw me?" Richie asked, causing Eddie to blush. 

"Yeah, uh, sorry." He laughs awkwardly. "It's hard to explain why, I have this thing, it feels like real fear when I'm in public by myself. I just-" he pauses, his face looking like he's considering his next words carefully. "I find it hard to face my fear by myself. I don't know if any of this makes sense." 

"It does," Richie replies, softly. In a way, what Eddie's talking about feels familiar to him, strangely so. More than that, this is the first he's hearing of Eddie having anxiety, he doesn't want to say he doesn't make sense and have him shut down. He wants to know more about Eddie, anything that he's willing to tell him. 

It's been a long time since he's put this much emotional investment into any person, his stomach churns uncomfortably, the feeling familiar to him. The fact that Eddie is a man instead of a woman, like Richie is supposed to be looking for, gives him the nagging feeling that he's constantly doing something wrong. It's hard to look Eddie in the eyes, he wishes he would've bought a drink to hide his face behind. If he had the money for it, that is. 

Eddie just looks at him, a soft smile on his face. Instinctively, Richie crosses his arms over himself, wanting to hide from Eddie's intense gaze. 

"I'm glad you showed up." 

Richie snorts. "What, you really think I regularly show people up?" 

"No," Eddie replies, earnestly. The softness of his features surprises Richie, yet doesn't surprise him at the same time. Eddie is as he pictured him to look like, but in some ways, he's completely different. His lips are thin, he has creases on either side of his mouth from smiling so much, his eyebrows are lower on his forehead than Richie's, like he could be perpetually frowning if he weren't so smiley. His dark brown eyes are framed with long eyelashes, a slightly lighter colour than the hair on his eyebrows. "You're just so intent on hating me, I take my small victories." 

"I don't hate you," Richie says, defensively, before he can really think about it, think about how Eddie could've gotten such an impression. 

Eddie looks taken aback. "You always complain whenever I call you. You don't even say hi when you answer, just say "What is it now, Eds?" You always tell me to shut up when I ask you any question, and honestly, you're just an asshole in every general sense." 

Richie is silent for a while, unsure of what to say. Eddie is right, in any case. Now that Richie really thinks about it, he feels bad about being such a dick, but really, it's all just a defence mechanism. He was determined to push Eddie away before he could leave himself, not let him get too close, and yet, Eddie had weasled his way in anyway. 

_Why do you even put up with me then? _Richie wants to ask, but all he says is; "I'm sorry." 

"It's fine, I've grown used to it. I think if you were nice to me, I wouldn't have as much fun talking to you." Eddie chuckles when he says this, but all Richie hears is _you're a temporary amusement until I get annoyed with you._

"Do you want a drink?" Richie's pulled from his thoughts by Eddie's question. He's got his hands on the chair, bracing himself to stand. His hands are so tiny, just like the rest of him, his hands look perfectly moisturized and soft. Richie wonders, briefly, how his fingers would fit in between Eddie's, before the alarm in his mind starts sounding and he realizes he shouldn't be having those thoughts, shouldn't entertain them when they arise.

"I'll just have whatever you have," Richie replies, his ears ringing from the sounds that are coming from nowhere but his own mind. 

It was a bad decision because Eddie comes back with two cookie crumble frappes, with a shit ton of pumps of caramel syrup. It turns out that he has the biggest sweet-tooth of anybody Richie has ever met, whereas Richie drinks his coffee completely black and used to gag over anything covered in powdered sugar. After awhile of blending the whipped cream into the drink with his straw, Eddie just takes Richie's and drinks it too. 

They spend the better part of an hour chatting somewhat comfortably, Eddie laughs heartily at things Richie says that the studio would've told him was miraculously unfunny. Richie deflects Eddie's questions about his life with questions of his own, careful to keep his voice as uninterested as he can, even though he's been thinking of his questions for weeks since Eddie's been talking to him in-between his driving gigs. 

The look Eddie gives him when he doesn't answer one of his questions, well, it makes Richie wants to answer them. But Eddie already knows so much, and as selfish as it is, Richie doesn't want Eddie to go anywhere. He certainly will if he knew just how deep Richie was in his self-depreciation, just how bad it was inside of his mind. The less Eddie knows, the better. 

But when Eddie asks him what he does for work, thinking he's sly in phrasing it another way than the last few dozen times he's asked, Richie actually answers him. 

"I got fired a month ago." 

"What?" Eddie is, presumably, more shocked that Richie answered him than the fact that he got fired. "Why?" 

"I worked at an open-mic night club, organizing the order people went on, made sure everything went smoothly, all that. I wanted to do my own gigs, I wanted to be a comedian." He paused. _Want_ to be a comedian. "They let me do a few stand-up gigs, none of them landed with the audience. I guess I was so bad I was bringing the business down, I didn't even have to be doing a gig for someone to up and walk out, just from seeing me backstage, thinking I'd be going up, I guess. So yeah, I got fired." He shrugs like it's no big deal, but saying all of that out loud, makes him want to cry. 

"None of those people know what they're talking about," Eddie says, fiercely. Richie is almost terrified of the intensity of Eddie's words, the expression on his face. "You're the funniest person I've ever known. But I gotta ask, you've been out of a job for a month?" 

"Well, yeah. I didn't think that I'd-" _That I'd still be alive by now. _He doesn't say it, but Eddie seems to understand anyway. He doesn't say anything, but Richie can see the way his face falls, and he regrets ever almost saying it. This is a weird feeling, caring about what you say around this person who cares about whether you're alive or dead. 

"Shit, I gotta go, I've got someone waiting for me to pick them up." Eddie puts his phone in his pocket from where he'd been looking at it. He stands, offers his hand to Richie. Richie takes it tentatively, Eddie's hands are warm where his are cold. His grip is strong too, he all but hoists Richie from his seat. "They can wait a minute or two, you live close, right? Let me walk you home." 

"No, that's okay," Richie says, but Eddie is already leading him out the door by a hand on his elbow. He knows Eddie won't give up, no matter how many times he says no. The little bugger is relentless like that. 

Richie leads him to the crosswalk a few feet away, crossing the street with Eddie in tow. He walks through a few backyards, hands in his pockets, and Eddie is rigid in a way that makes Richie think he doesn't really like the idea of trespassing, but he does this all the time and nobody's called him out yet. Finally, they reach the door to his apartment complex. Richie doesn't look up towards the roof, for fear of Eddie looking too, but his neck burns from where he wants to look, badly, to see if the rope is still there, if it isn't too late. 

"Well, thanks for walking me home," Richie says, awkwardly. Eddie shakes his head, and Richie's heart sinks. 

"I have to make sure that you get inside safely," Eddie says, standing, unmoving, as Richie reluctantly unlocks the door with his key. His heart is hammering, he wonders what this is, some sort of power move? He tries not to think about what Eddie's intentions are, what it could mean, the nobility he recognizes in pretty much any teen movie. But those had been a boy and a girl, he doesn't dare think about Eddie thinking of this situation as anything remotely like those. He can't. 

His door is on the fifth floor, third door to the left. He turns around to say something, but Eddie is holding his arms out toward him, and Richie steps into them, and Eddie gives him the tightest hug around his waist he's ever received. And Richie doesn't realize until too late that his back isn't against the door anymore. But finally, Eddie waves at him, even though he's right in front of him, and he leaves. After they'd both seen the eviction notice on the door. 

"Do you still want to kill yourself?" 

It's two days after they met for the first time. Eddie called Richie like normal. Richie tried to be his regular grouchy self with Eddie, but ever since their conversation at Starbucks, Richie can't help being conscious of how likeable he finds himself on a moment's basis. Not very, but especially not when he's being a dick to Eddie for no reason, if only for his own protection. 

He doesn't know what to say, at first. He knows what the answer is, but he knows that it's one that Eddie isn't hoping to hear. 

"Why?" He asks instead. 

He hears Eddie take a long breath into the receiver before he says; "I know this is sudden, you barely know me and all that, but I was thinking that- y'know, since you're gonna lose your place in- how long? This week? Something like that. Anyway, I hope that you don't want to kill yourself because I'd love it if you lived. Anyway, would you maybe want to live with me?" 

Richie doesn't say anything as Eddie continues to ramble, he's only half-listening to him anyway. The nervous way that Eddie just keeps spouting words makes Richie's heart race. 

_Live with Eddie? As roommates? Is he offering his home to me out of pity? Probably, just because he knows I'm a few days away from eviction. _

The part of Richie's brain that he usually listened to in times like these was telling him not to accept, his getting evicted was a perfect excuse to just do it, to off himself and get it over with. But it was so much harder now with Eddie offering him a place to stay. It was all hard, with Eddie there, barely ever letting Richie out of his his range. The selfish part of him was telling him to accept the offer, live a better life than the one he was now, because he knew he could be happy with Eddie. He would be happy with Eddie. But would Eddie be happy with him? It was selfish of him to take the offer, to make Eddie put up with him more than he already was. 

But the selfish part of him won anyway. 

"Okay." 

Richie doesn't have a lot of possessions to pack up. Eddie comes over in the evening to help him, even though Richie had insisted that he didn't, but did anyway, because he never listened to Richie when he didn't want him in his boundaries. If Eddie felt any sort of disgust over the state of Richie's apartment, he didn't say anything. Richie had thrown out the majority of the empty food containers strung about, stuffed all the laundry on the floor into a suitcase and stuffed it in his closet. When they lifted his sad, faded excuse for a love-seat, Richie almost dropped it on Eddie's foot in his haste to cover up all the wrappers that had made their way under it. 

Eddie had furniture in his place, and Richie didn't need the well-used seat anymore, so he gave it to his neighbour down the hall who was down on funds herself, and the only furniture they took with them were the two mattresses Richie made into a bed. He didn't have any dressers anyway, his clothes simply organized by piles along the wall, no bookshelf, because he had no books to inhabit one with. He had a few garbage bags full of his clothes and linens and two boxes full of dishes and a few of his favourite action figures, and then they were up and out of the apartment. 

Eddie didn't say anything during the drive, Richie's knee was bouncing with anxiety, what if Eddie had decided just then that he didn't want Richie anywhere near him anymore? He was most certainly offering his home out of pity, but it wasn't like Richie had any other options. He could've moved back in with his mother, but then he thought about his father, and there was no way he'd go back into his childhood home after he fought so hard to escape it. And if Eddie grew tired of him, it would be easier to leave everything behind then, when he had nothing and nobody to lose. He was just waiting for Eddie to give up on him. 

"Do you want pizza? To celebrate?" Eddie asked him, not taking his eyes off of the road. 

_Celebrate what? I'm nothing worth celebrating. _

"Sure." 

It was the evening after Richie had moved in, they were sitting on Eddie's couch, a velvet navy blue, undoubtedly brand new. Eddie had a rather nice house with a lot of nice and expensive-looking possessions. Every room of the house was entirely spotless. Richie had been practically tiptoeing between the guest room, his room, for the time being, the bathroom, and the living room, when Eddie wanted him. He was afraid to tarnish anything in Eddie's home. The first thing he'd noticed when he moved in was that there were no knives in the kitchen, no pills to speak of in the bathroom cabinet, no razors in the shower. Eddie had completely baby-proofed his house. They were eating leftover pizza, watching some cooking special on the food channel, but neither of them was really paying attention. 

"Did you sleep last night?" Eddie asked him. His leg was crossed on top of the leg he had folded under him, plate balanced on his thigh. 

Richie wasn't sure what to say. It had been the first night, since more than a month ago, where he wasn't on call with Eddie. Why would he be, when he lived with him? But the room had felt quiet, in his apartment, he had grown used to the sound of cars whizzing past and honking throughout the night. In Eddie's house, the night was silent. 

"Did you?" Richie deflected, not wanting to tell Eddie that he hadn't been able to sleep a wink last night. 

Eddie glared at him, but his face softened almost as fast as the glare had been there in the first place. Eddie only used a few facial expressions when addressing Richie, and a soft smile was the most frequent one, like one that you'd use when trying to coax a shy child. "Not really." He admitted with a shrug. His leg was stretched out that it almost touched Richie's, even though they were at opposite ends of the couch. Richie curled his legs up into himself instinctively. 

"It was the first time I wasn't listening to you snoring," Richie cringed when he said it, "it was weird." 

"Yeah," Richie muttered in agreement. But it felt weird to suggest they should call each other just to listen to the other breathe. Richie wouldn't admit that listening to Eddie sleeping helped him sleep too, but they lived together now. And there was no reason that they should've gotten so used to it in the first place. Richie didn't know what to suggest to fix it, and even if he had, he wouldn't have said anything. 

"You can take your sweater off, you know," Eddie said, looking at Richie with a caring look on his face. "You live here now." 

"That's alright, I'm okay," Richie said. Eddie was wearing a simple T-shirt and gym shorts, it was really warm most of the evenings, and the air conditioning wasn't quite up to par with the heat. He had seen Eddie looking at him yesterday, he hadn't said anything, but Richie had flushed under his gaze, it was only a matter of time before he would bring it up. Of course, Richie was sweating like a motherfucker under his hoodie, but there was no way that he was going to take it off. 

"Whatever it is, Rich, I don't care. You're safe here." Eddie said it in the most tender voice, like he was addressing a traumatized child. And the thing was that, Richie believed him. And that terrified him. To think that Eddie wouldn't immediately kick him out of his house once he saw what covered the entirety of most of both of his arms, he would've rather that Eddie were disgusted, a reasonable reaction. Richie was scared, Eddie was so good, too good for him, Richie was nothing in the grand scheme of Eddie. 

"I-I'm tired," Richie said, standing. He didn't look at Eddie as he turned and retired to his own room.

Richie was laying on his back in his bed, watching the way the light from outside reflected across the ceiling. He'd been laying there for hours, he hadn't heard a single thing from Eddie since he'd heard the sink running and the TV shut off. He assumed he had gone to sleep. Richie knew he had another sleepless night ahead of him. 

And then he heard the sound of his door opening, softly, and he sat up in a haste. It was hard to see in the dark, but he knew it was Eddie as soon as his face broke from behind the door. 

"You're awake," Is all he said. Richie said nothing, just staring at him, his heart pounding, wondering what he should do, wondering if he could tell Eddie to leave a room in his own house. 

"You can't sleep either?" Richie shook his head, no, and somehow Eddie took that as his cue to move in closer. Richie stiffened, his mind immediately going to the shirt he was wearing, ratty and ripped, how he was wearing nothing else but his underwear. From what he could see, Eddie was wearing a shirt and pyjama bottoms. He watched as Eddie approached the bed, too afraid to say anything. He stopped just at the foot, in the dark, Richie could see the soft, calming smile on his face, the crinkles at the corners of his mouth. "I got used to sleeping with you. With my phone, I mean, not you actually." It sounded like Eddie was nervous. Was he? Richie couldn't tell. It was so dark, he was so terrified. 

"Would it be weird if I just, asked to sleep here, tonight? I can sleep on the floor, I don't care, I just- it's weird. Sleeping, or trying to, without you." 

Richie knew what Eddie meant. He couldn't sleep without Eddie either. "It's your house." He said, he hated how broken his voice sounded. 

Eddie was frowning, he could almost see through the darkness. His voice was suddenly serious. "This is your room, Rich. I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to do. If you don't want me here, I'll leave. All you have to do is say the word." 

Richie didn't know what to do, could barely think clearly. He wasn't going to say no to Eddie, not when he couldn't get a good night sleep without hearing Eddie's breathing, soft beside his ear. He couldn't let him sleep on the floor, but the only other option was the bed, next to him. Richie was shaking just with the thought of Eddie sleeping directly next to him.

"Go to sleep." Is all Richie said. He shuffled over to make room for Eddie in the bed, his body trembling, but he covered himself up in blankets so Eddie wouldn't notice. 

But Eddie did notice. There was nothing Richie ever said or did that Eddie didn't notice. He came over and climbed in on the other side, inching himself under the blankets. He stayed a respectable distance from where Richie lay, but the bed was only so large. Richie lay there for a while, listening to Eddie breathe, he couldn't stop trembling, and he thought surely Eddie could feel it, but he didn't say anything, but he could feel his concerned gaze on him. A few minutes later, Eddie's breathing evened, and Richie thought that he had fallen asleep. He slowly looked over, to see Eddie already looking at him. 

"You're okay," Eddie said, his gaze never wavering. He didn't touch him, didn't try to move in closer, he seemed comfortable and relaxed where Richie was rigid and trembling, yet Eddie was taking up the least amount of room on the bed. Richie fell asleep to Eddie murmuring that same phrase to him, over and over. 

They were in the grocery store when Richie watched Eddie have a panic attack for the first time. 

They were looking at lettuce, Richie was barely paying attention, everything was fine until Eddie had looked behind him, and his face had turned white as a sheet. And then he looked back, reaching for something in his pocket, but coming up empty. "Fuck." It all seemed to happen in a fraction of a second. Eddie, perfectly fine, Eddie, intaking breath rapidly, dry heaving while other shoppers stared at him. 

"Eddie?" Richie asked, and in between heaves, Eddie was saying something that Richie couldn't interpret. 

Richie abandoned their basket, hardly filled anyway, and dragged Eddie out of the store, setting up around the back, muttering "Sit down Eddie, it's okay." Eddie sat against the concrete, his chest heaving with every breath. Richie had no idea what was happening, no idea what to do, until Eddie was shoving something into his hand that was pressed into his jacket pocket. He extended it, taking what turned out to be Eddie's car keys. And then he heard what he had been trying to say.

"Inhaler." He gasped. Richie understood, then. He sprinted to Eddie's car, unlocked it, grabbed the inhaler out of the dashboard, that he'd noticed but hadn't asked about, and ran back to Eddie, colour returning to his face but his breathing still hard to come by. He brought the inhaler to Eddie's mouth, and Eddie took a few long puffs of air. He sat for a while, catching his breath, and then he said "thanks." 

"Are you okay?" Richie asked. Eddie waved him off, standing up on his wobbly legs, bracing himself against the wall. "M' fine. 

Richie didn't offer his shoulder for Eddie to brace himself on and Eddie didn't ask. They walked to the car and drove off, the groceries forgotten. Richie couldn't stomach the idea of going back in there, at least for today, after that, and it seemed like Eddie felt the same way. 

"I'm sorry," Eddie said after a few moments of driving in silence. "About that. It doesn't usually get that bad." 

"It's okay," Richie said, softly. He knew by now that Eddie had anxiety, but he'd never seen him have a full-blown panic attack before. 

"I thought-" Eddie choked on a laugh, running his hands through his hair, embarrassed. Richie tried not to stare. "This is so fucking crazy. I just- I thought I saw my mother. She's been dead for like, a few years, and I still panicked, even knowing that she's dead." 

"Isn't that fucked up?" He asked, he sounded amused, but Richie could see he was anything but. 

"I'm sorry." Is all Richie could think to say. Eddie mumbled something like thanks, and all Richie thought about the way home was how Eddie's mother could have made him that panicked at the idea of seeing her. But he didn't ask, and he nodded mutely at everything Eddie said for the entire drive home. 

When Richie had nightmares, which he did almost every night, he didn't wake up in a cold sweat, screaming or panting or gasping. He simply opened his eyes, his entire body shaking and his heart thudding out of his ribcage, the words he'd heard in his dream echoing loud enough for his ears to ring. The last few times Eddie had slept beside him, he didn't wake up. Richie just lay there shaking until he stopped and he could go back to sleep again. But tonight was different, because when Richie woke from his nightmare, he looked over, and Eddie was awake, staring at him. 

"Richie? What's wrong, you're shaking." He asked as if Richie hadn't noticed that he was shaking. 

"Nightmare," Richie said through gritted teeth, willing his body to stop trembling. He hardly remembered what his nightmare had consisted of, the entirety of him was focused on Eddie, not scaring Eddie, not letting Eddie find out just how terrible and broken he was. 

They had switched to sleeping in Eddie's bed a few nights ago, because his bed was bigger, the distance between them farther, so Richie had to be shaking pretty hard for Eddie to notice in the dark. Eddie quickly got up and out of bed, his bare feet padding down the hall on the hardwood. Richie lay there, he couldn't fucking stop shaking, and he was sure that Eddie had just left, to sleep on the couch or in the guest room and away from Richie's crazy. But then, Eddie was coming back, he had something in his hands. 

"Here," he said, coming over to Richie's side. "Sit up," it was an order, but his voice was gentle. Richie felt Eddie's hand between his shoulder blades helping him sit up. He sat himself up with his weight on his arm, and Eddie was putting something in his hand, moving his fingers to hold it so it wouldn't burn him. "Here you go, Richie." Eddie's voice was the most tender it had ever been as he, with his hand over top of Richie's holding the mug, coaxed Richie's shaking hand up to his mouth. His hands were still shaking badly, but Eddie hadn't filled the cup full. He took a tentative sip, it was tea, with absolutely nothing in it, just like he preferred. He took another sip, his heartbeat calming down, but then it started up again when Eddie softly moved a strand of curls from Richie's forehead. 

"Thank you," Richie said after he'd drank all of it despite the fact that it was scalding against the back of his throat. What he really wanted to say was _you're wasting so much of your time on me._ But he didn't. 

Eddie smiled at him, taking the cup from Richie's hands and placing it on the desk next to the bed. He normally would take dishes to sink immediately, but for some reason, he left it and crawled back into bed. Richie didn't lay back down immediately. And Eddie reached over and rubbed his back, comfortingly, and Richie let him. 

Eventually, Eddie's hand motions slowed, and Richie realized he was falling asleep. He lay back down and shuffled under the covers, Eddie had moved his arm, but it still lay close to Richie's body. Once he'd settled, he lay facing Eddie, who's eyelids were lidded, but was gazing at him too. Richie watched as Eddie's hand moved under the covers between them, Eddie watched Richie watch him, watched Richie's reaction as his hand tentatively found the back of Richie's. Richie squeezed his eyes shut, resisted pulling away. Every fibre of him was screaming that he wasn't supposed to be doing this, he shouldn't like it. But he always had a hard time denying Eddie, especially Eddie who was sleepy. 

Eddie's hand found Richie's. Richie spread his fingers, slowly, wondering if Eddie would pull away, feeling the coarse hair that grew from his wrist over his knuckles. But he didn't. His hand slowly, so slowly pushed against his, palm against palm, and slid his fingers in the space between Richie's. Richie's heart was thrumming through his ears, Eddie's grip on him was so soft, soft in case he'd pull away, but he didn't. And when Richie risked opening his eyes, Eddie's were closed, but he was smiling. 

It was the second week of living with Eddie when Richie got a call from his mother that he actually answered. 

"Richard! I've been trying to call you for _weeks! _Where are you?!" 

She hadn't even waited for him to say hello. "I'm at home." He replied. 

"No, you're not." She argued. "Your landlord said that you've been gone for two weeks." 

"Wait, you're here? In New York?" Richie's stomach dropped. 

"Of course I am! What choice do you give me when you don't answer my calls! I thought you were _dead!_" His mother had always had a flair for the dramatics. Still, he couldn't help the flicker of guilt that he felt for ignoring her calls. So it didn't even occur to him _not_ to give his mother directions to Eddie's house. 

By the time she had finally found her way through bustling New York to the small neighbourhood Eddie lived in, it was well into the evening and Eddie had gotten home an hour ago. 

"I don't mind if your mother stays," Eddie said, once Richie had told him his mother had popped up for a surprise visit. He didn't mention the minor details, like how he wanted to cry just from the idea of having to see his mother after so many years away from her watchful gaze. But if he could suck it up, act like all was fine and dandy and convince her that he was doing well, she would leave, eventually. 

The doorbell rang. Eddie stood up to answer it, because it was his house. 

"Hi, Mrs. Tozier, come on in, Richie's just in here." The living room was a room over from the entryway, but Richie could see the shadows of Eddie, and then his mother, stepping through the doorway. A shiver ran through him, but he stood up obediently to greet her when she finally made her way to the living room, Eddie trailing behind her. 

"Richie! My darling boy!" She practically squealed, opening her arms for a hug that Richie stepped into, pretending not to be hesitant about it. Eddie looked at him uncertainly from behind her, he knew something was wrong. He always knew, no matter what. 

"Hi, mom." He mumbled into her shoulder. 

She finally released him, leaning back to look at him. She was grinning, holding his shoulders tightly, like she couldn't believe that he was real. She hadn't been this excited to see him since... since-

"Would you like a drink?" Eddie asked, awkwardly, because he was a good host. 

"Water will do just fine, thank you, young man." She replied. Eddie went to the kitchen to bring her back a glass of water. Once he'd left, her act immediately dissipated. "We need to talk." She said, simply, leading Richie to another room in the house, one he hadn't dare step foot into yet. 

Richie followed his mother until she stopped and promptly turned around to face him. He startled, stopping in his tracks. 

"You should've told me you're not doing well, honey." The phrase should have been kind, sweet, but her voice was venomous. That's what she always did, chose carefully calculated words that wouldn't have anybody batting an eye, anybody that didn't hear the underlying tone of her voice. "You know what they taught you about making those sorts of friends," she lifted her chin in Eddie's direction, his back was turned to them from the kitchen they could see from the room they were in."Guilty by association." 

"He's just my friend, I thought it was healthy for me to have other male friends, right?" Richie said, desperate. Her voice was a venomous whisper, while his was high-pitched and panicked. His mother, though he was far out of her nest, and her control over him, could make his life miserable if she thought he was having affairs he shouldn't be. If she thought he was hopeless, would she interfere when his father had pulled a knife on him like she had last time, or would she let it happen? A dead son was better than a gay one. 

She 'tsked' at him. "Other_ normal_ male friends, honey. Look at him, do you see that? That man prefers the company of other men, he's living in sin, do you want him to bring his sinful lifestyle to you?" She paused, drawing closer to his ear. "Do you want him to brainwash you into thinking that being homosexual is normal? Do you... you don't want that man _inside _of you, Richie dear, do you?" 

The question shocked Richie so much that his ears started to ring. 

_"Men shouldn't have other men inside of them. It's barbaric, unnatural, sinful. If you think about wanting another man inside of you, you need to repent, ask Jesus for forgiveness." _

He hadn't heard the question since he was 19. "No, no, mom that's disgusting, I would never do that," he said, resolute. Back then, it had been easy to say _no, I don't think about that, I don't want it_ when he had been asked almost every morning, because it had been true. They never asked the right questions, Richie thought of his erection buried deep inside another man, on top of him and working their hips into a shared motion. He never thought of another man being inside of him, but he sure thought about the other way around. Because his parents still had the barest amount of faith in him, in his morality, they never thought about how he could be the initiator, they were convinced that he was just corrupt. 

But he was the predator, the one who, if anyone, would be the convincer, the corrupter. That single fact wore on his conscious all the time, and it came back in full force now. He glanced at Eddie, and he wanted to leave, never return Eddie's calls, never see him again. Because it wasn't Eddie his mother should be worrying about, it was him. 

He thought about the way Eddie looked at him, held his hand between them when they went to sleep at night in the same bed, still called Richie every day between driving gigs. If his mother knew about any of it, she'd lose it. Richie hadn't given any of it much thought because it made his stomach churn. Eddie wasn't a homosexual, Richie didn't think so. And even if he was, he didn't like Richie that way, did he? And Richie didn't like him that way, either. He couldn't. It was barbaric, and they'd never be happy together. Nobody would let it happen, not the world, not Richie's mother, not Richie. 

"I don't know, Richie. I don't think your father is going to be very happy with this situation you have here." She said. 

Richie felt his heart jump to his throat. "No-no please, mom, don't tell dad. It's fine, you don't need to tell him b-because I'm not doing anything, I promise." His voice was so shaky and he hated how desperate he sounded. If she told his father that she thought he wasn't doing as well as she thought he was, he would- it was hard for Richie to think about, to remember. Whatever his father did in the past, it would be so much worse now. An adult gay son was different than a teenage gay son you could put into a program for sick, confused youth and fix. 

"Fine Richie, but you need to call Chris." His mother hissed, before retreating when she saw Eddie leaving the kitchen. She sauntered back into the living room just as Eddie arrived with her glass of water. She fed him some bullshit about having to get back to her hotel room because she was nervous to drive in the dark, but Richie wasn't really listening. He knew she just wanted to be out of the house, away from Eddie, because she was positively disgusted by him. 

She hugged Richie goodbye, and Richie felt like he was on autopilot when he hugged her back. Eddie offered her a hand to shake and she didn't take it. Richie didn't hear her leave, didn't hear Eddie talking to him, didn't see the concerned look he was giving him. 

"Gotta- be right back," Richie said, and he all but sprinted to the bathroom to dry heave into the toilet. 

Eddie had asked him what was wrong a few dozen times, but after a while, he must have realized that Richie wasn't going to say anything but "nothing," or "God, why are you so obsessed with me?" because he stopped asking altogether. Richie didn't want to hurt Eddie, so he crawled into bed beside him as usual. Eddie didn't try to hold his hand again, and he was grateful. He lay there, practically at the edge of the bed, just so he could be as far away from Eddie as possible, as much distance between their bodies as there could be. When he thought Eddie had fallen asleep, he quietly crept out from under the covers and went to lay and stare at the ceiling in his own bed. 

Richie called Chris while Eddie was at work. He had an excuse for when Eddie would ask him why he'd hung up while he'd been driving, and Richie was just going to say that his phone had died. 

His hands were shaking so violently as he held the phone to his ear. He listened to the phone ringing, hoping that he wouldn't get an answer, that he could say that he tried and alas, no dice. But after the third ring, a deep voice answered; "Hello?" 

"Hey," Richie said, paused. "It's uh, it's Richie." 

He waited, there was a beat of silence. And then; "Richie! Hey, Richie, how are you?" 

"I'm good, man." He replied. The word slipped from his mouth without thought. That's how he'd convinced them the first time. _Dude, man, bro. _It was language that made you trustworthy to be around other men. Made you safe to be around. 

"God, it's been so long! How long has it been, Rich?" 

"Eight years, I think," Richie said. He didn't want Chris to get the impression that he knew exactly how long it'd been, but he did. He remembered the last time he'd spoken to Chris like it was last week. 

_"I believe in you, Richie." Chris was looking at him with something like adoration. He had told him that he would be the kid that he'd be the saddest to see released. He'd told him; "I have the most faith in you. You've made amazing progress. I don't think you'll be a danger, but those boys? They have a long way to go." _

_"This is my number, in case you feel like you're regressing, just in case. But I don't think you'll need it. You'll be a good boy, won't you, Richie?" _

_Richie was eighteen, and the nickname sent shivers up his spine, but he just nodded. And Christ put a brisk hand on his shoulder before moving it, letting Richie go. Six months, that was the longest Richie had ever gone without making a single joke. _

"Your mother told me you'd be calling." And those were the words that made Richie's legs turn to jelly, make him almost collapse onto the floor. _He knows. _

"W-what'd she say?" 

But Chris didn't answer him. "You're regressing. You remember what I thought you, don't you? I know it's hard, Rich, believe me, I know. I have to say no to homosexual thoughts every day. But the lord's wisdom is so much more fulfilling, he will be so proud of you, if you can fight it. I know you can." 

_I have to say no to homosexual thoughts every day. _

"I know," Richie said, and he hated how shaky his voice was. 

"But you're not going to keep following the lord's righteous path when you're surrounding yourself with people who don't care that they're going to burn in hell. They'll drag you down with them, right?" 

"Right," Richie's voice was a whisper. He could feel the tears streaking down his cheeks, but at the same time, he felt nothing at all. 

"Do the smart thing, Richie. The Lord sees everything that you do. Make him proud." 

"I will." It was a lie. Nobody could ever be proud of him. Richie was agnostic, yet the threat of an all-knowing saviour still made him tense every muscle in his body, waiting for a smiting. 

"And Rich? Call me, whenever you're not doing so hot. That's what I'm here for, isn't it?" Richie could hear the devilish smile behind his voice, and he couldn't register what he said in reply before he hit the 'end call' button with his shaky fingers. 

Eddie knew immediately, the second he got home. He was like a bloodhound, could smell the misery in the air. Richie wasn't sure how he did it, but he did. 

"Hey," Eddie said, taking one look at Richie's face, his tears had dried hours before, but the way Eddie rushed to him, you'd think he was still crying. "Hey, Richie, are you okay? What's wrong?" 

He'd caught Richie about to head out. It would figure he'd be coming in as Richie was going out. He always came home a different time each day. _Home. _That was wrong, it was Eddie's house. And Richie couldn't walk around, in Eddie's house, surrounded by Eddie's stuff, smelling Eddie's scent. He would go crazy sitting here, thinking of his life that was revolved around having Eddie in it, thinking of causing his mother so much stress over having a son she never wanted, when he should've just killed himself after he hung up and saved both of them the trouble he'd caused, but especially Eddie. Eddie, who he had feelings that he shouldn't have for any man. Eddie, who looked at him so kindly, so concerned, invested in something that he'd never get an inch of satisfaction from. 

Eddie, who was standing in front of him, his image was blurring, and Richie realized that he was crying again, his tears fogging up his glasses. Eddie reached up and took them off of his face. Richie said nothing as Eddie wiped them on his sweater, but then he didn't put them on. He just looked at Richie, a look that wasn't pity, was something with so much care, something Richie had seen traces of when they faced each other in the dark of Eddie's bedroom. Eddie's eyes were big and beautifully brown and saw nothing but Richie. 

Eddie reached up to cradle Richie's cheek, his thumb swiping at salty tears. Richie didn't move, but he was backed up against the door, his shoulders hunched up almost up to his ears. "Eds" he whispered, maybe it was his fault, for using that nickname, for thinking that Eddie was close enough to kiss him, for _wanting_ to kiss him. The way Eddie's thumb smoothed over his jaw so tenderly almost made Richie forget that this was wrong, so, so wrong, but he could feel his legs failing beneath him. Eddie just gazed at him, his other hand on Richie's shoulder. 

And he was leaning in, and Richie held his breath, thinking _no, no don't let him, you're disgusting if you do. Filthy, you're going to die. Better off dead. Dead, dead, dead. _But Eddie's lips were on his, and they were gentle and soft, and Richie was pushing back, his hands found the center of Eddie's chest, and he wasn't even thinking when he shoved him away so hard that Eddie hit the wall opposite and stumbled. 

And Richie turn and ran. 


	2. I'm Losing to you, Baby, I'm no Match

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire fic takes place over a span of 4 and a half months, so I'm really sorry for all the timeskips, I have no other idea how to tell this story in a way that makes sense lmao.

Richie didn't get very far, with Eddie still holding his glasses, he can't see a single thing, and he almost trips on some object and falling on the driveway. He heard Eddie stomping down the stairs after him, but he felt Eddie grab his wrist. Eddie must have seen the way he winced, he let go and stared at Richie, both dumbfounded and sad. 

"I-I'm sorry, Rich. I didn't... did I misread something?" Eddie was speaking, fast, almost fast enough that Richie's brain couldn't keep up with what he was saying. He couldn't speak, couldn't say anything, a billion thoughts running through his mind at once. 

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfort-" 

"How did you know?" Richie asked before he could stop himself. His mind wasn't agreeing with what was coming out of his mouth. His mind was saying _your fault, your fault, you're disgusting, disgusting, you liked it, you belong in hell_ over and over and his mouth was saying "How did you know?" And every time he finished saying it he just said it again. 

Eventually, Eddie got close enough that Richie could hear him say "Know what? Know what?" He put his glasses back in Richie's hand that he didn't even realize he'd outstretched. He put them back on his face, saw the questioning look in Eddie's eyes. 

Finally, Richie stopped. He took a deep breath. Eddie was looking at him like he wasn't sure what to do with him like he was contemplating running away or turning him in someplace. "That I'm... I'm..." Richie tried to finish, he really did, he couldn't look at Eddie, even though Eddie had just kissed him, and he was clearly not unaccepting, Richie still couldn't look him in the eyes as he spoke. "I'm not... not normal. I'm g-g-g...g..." 

There were tears streaming down Richie's face by the time he had finished, he'd never said the word out loud before. He felt sick thinking about it, saying it to refer to anybody else, especially to himself.

_"Gay is a word used to make you feel comfortable with homosexuality, to integrate it into society as normalcy. But it is not normal, gay is a bad word, being gay is one of the worst things you can ever be." _

Eddie rushed toward him hurriedly and wiped his tears, the tender look on his face as he stared at him just made Richie cry even more. 

"You're normal Richie, of course, you're normal. It's normal. You're okay, you're amazing." Eddie was saying to him while he continuously wiped the tears from Richie's cheeks. "I like you, Richie." 

And Richie stepped away from him. _He can't like you, you're disgusting, both boys. Boys can't like boys because it's an abomination. _"You can't." It's all he said, he couldn't think of anything else that could be a good argument, he just knew Eddie couldn't, _shouldn't like_ him. 

"What does that even m-" 

"You can't be caught up with me, Eddie," Richie said, fiercely. He'd momentarily forgotten that he'd just admitted his darkest secret to Eddie in favour of convincing him that he was no good. "It's not worth it. You deserve so much, Eddie, you-" 

"Shut the fuck up, Richie!" Eddie exclaimed, and Richie shut his mouth tight. Eddie stood in front of him, hands in fists beside him, and he came forward, just enough that he was brushing Richie's fingertips with his own as he spoke. He didn't pull away. "Do you even hear yourself? What do I deserve that you don't? Why are you so sure that I'm so much better than you are? I like you-" he poked Richie's chest playfully, but his eyebrows were furrowed seriously, "because you're funny and empathetic, and you don't make me feel bad about my panic attacks, and you're beautiful. God, Richie, you're the most beautiful guy I've ever seen in my life, and I can't fucking fall asleep anymore without you." 

Richie was crying, he could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks. Eddie just stared at him, waiting for him to say something. Responding to a confession was never something Richie had ever had to do. 

"Think about it, Eddie. Seriously, what are you going to say when somebody asks you how you met me? What do you say? You called the wrong number and it turned out to be me, and you somehow convinced me not to fling myself off of the top of my apartment building," Eddie winces when he says it, "and then what? We've been in love ever since? I'm not- I'm not _good." _

_"_Why are you so caught up with you not being good enough for me, don't I get to decide that?" Eddie's voice is raised, his fists clenched at his sides, and for some reason, Richie is relishing in it, making Eddie raise his voice at him for the first time, getting angry at him. Eddie should have yelled at him a long time ago. "Whoever told you all this shit, Richie, you must know it's bullshit. Does it not matter what _I _think of you?" 

And that's what actually cracks through. All of the walls, a single crack in the foundation, Richie can almost feel the walls tumbling down around him, mentally reaching out, afraid of Eddie seeing him, _truly_ seeing him and all his exposed trauma and his scared, beating heart that beats a little faster when Eddie looks at him. It's a miracle Eddie likes him, if he knew, if he knew any more than he already does, that would be it for him. 

"I-I'm-" Richie could barely speak, he was sobbing so hard, choked cries wretching their way out of his throat with each breath. "I'm b-broken, I c-can't-I can't-" he hated the way he was crying in front of Eddie, inches away from him, how Eddie looked pissed at him but also like he wanted so badly to comfort him. All he seemed to do was make Eddie worry about him. How could you possibly be with someone like that? 

"Don't leave," And he said the words before he could think about it, they'd forced themselves out of his mouth before he could fight them back, the words that were at the edge of his throat every single second of every single day. 

At that, Eddie didn't hold back anymore. He rushed to put his hands on Richie's cheeks, wiped away his tears. "Have you not been listening to this conversation? I'm not leaving, that's what I'm saying." His voice was stern, but his gaze was so gentle, Richie thought he could never live without this face looking at him and that he didn't deserve it all at the same time. "I'm so far gone, Rich, you can't get rid of me now." 

Eddie coaxed Richie back inside, leading him with intertwined fingers that Richie didn't pull away from. Eddie brought Richie cups of tea while he cried on the sofa, after a while, because crying in front of Eddie was at the top of his list of things he'd like to avoid, Richie thought to heck with it, and this was the time to truly test Eddie's promise. 

"Ask me the things you've been asking," Richie said in the tense silence. The tears had finally ceased, he must have looked a complete mess. Eddie looked at him in response, surprised. "Really?" 

"Yeah," Richie said before he could change his mind. He heard Eddie clear his throat after he looked away. He couldn't look at Eddie's face while he told him everything, he knew the questions he was going to ask. 

"Do you like me?" 

This question surprised him. He looked back at Eddie, who was looking at him nervously, his bottom lip between his teeth. 

"Do you usually sleep with somebody you don't like?" It could have been a joke, but Richie was serious. For everything he knew, how to convey to a man that you like him, being another man, was not one of them. It was also an indirect way of telling Eddie that he returned his feelings, in his own fucked-up way. He truly didn't know if he would be able to stomach telling Eddie straight that he thought of him _like that. _

"No," Eddie answered, gazing at Richie with the tiniest smile gracing his face. Richie felt the blush on his cheeks as he looked away, gazing at his knees instead. He was hoping Eddie wouldn't make him say it. 

He didn't. Eddie always came through. "Why did you look like you'd seen a ghost when your mom was here?" 

Richie sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Because I hate her." He whispered. He'd never dared to say it, to admit it to himself. But he knew, he hated her. 

"Why do you hate her?" Eddie didn't sound appalled that he hated his own mother. He didn't sound surprised at all, actually, he just asked his next question like it was a perfectly normal question to be asking. 

"Because she hates me," Richie replied. The answer came easy to him, and he knew he was being vague, as he always was, but he found it easier to answer when he was prompting Eddie to the next question, when he didn't have to explain all of it at once. 

"Why does she hate you?"

"She doesn't want me to be... what I am." Richie still couldn't say the word. _Gay. _"She wants me to be normal, but deep down, she knows that I can't. And she hates me because of it." 

"What about your dad?" Eddie sounded completely content to keep asking questions, not sounding at all like he was annoyed that he was barely getting anywhere. He was getting somewhere, somewhere very deep, at least to Richie. Richie had never said any of these things to anyone out loud in his life. 

"He hasn't spoken to me since I left when I was eighteen. He's mad that he lost a punching bag." Eddie sucked in a breath at that. 

"Why do you..." Eddie seemed hesitant to ask his question. Richie looked up at him, and Eddie was staring at his hands, fiddling nervously. "why do you wear long sleeves all the time, even when it's warm?" 

"Next question." 

"You said I could ask." Eddie murmured, looking up at him. His voice was soft, childlike. Richie felt the tear running down his cheek, saw the exact moment Eddie looked terrified that he'd overstepped. 

"Because I don't want you to think I'm disgusting," Richie replied, earnestly. He heard Eddie start to say "No, no, you could never disgust me" but Richie interrupted him, wiping the tears from his face. "Next question." 

Eddie snapped his mouth shut and nodded, a pondering look on his face, before he said; "Why do you think being gay is so terrible?" 

"I don't," Richie said, softly. He really didn't. "I just wish that I wasn't." 

"Why?" 

Richie's breath shuddered in his chest, he exhaled, and Eddie didn't rush him. "Because it's hard." He said, finally, his voice breaking. "It's been so long, Eds. I still- I can't... I can't forget. It's so hard..." Eddie placed his hand on Richie's, and Richie reacted to pull away, but he kept it there. "If I think about another guy, l-like that, it's like mental shock therapy. It's hard to... to _be. _I don't think I ever can." 

There was a long moment of silence then. Eddie's voice was barely above a whisper. "What'd they do to you, Rich?" 

Richie didn't answer, he was so tired from crying. He leaned up against Eddie's warm chest and let himself enjoy Eddie's arms around his body. That was alright, Eddie knew the answer by then. 

It was mid-afternoon by the time Richie awoke. There hadn't been a blanket over him last night, but there was now, tucked around his long limbs. 

_Last night. _

Richie sat up so fast his head spun, remembering it. Eddie had told him he liked him. Eddie, a man, liked him, Richie, also a man. Eddie liked men. Richie's mom was right about him. And Richie liked Eddie, because he also liked men. He really liked Eddie. 

"Eddie?" Richie croaked, his voice horse from crying so much. Had Eddie left in the night, after learning what Richie had relented and told him? 

But no, Eddie's smaller frame was circling the corner. "Hey, hey, good morning. Did you sleep okay?" He was by his side in an instant, kneeling beside the couch towards him. 

Richie nodded. "I like you." He said. He felt both instant, overwhelming shame, but also, gratification from saying it. Was it still okay for him to say that? Had yesterday been a fever dream? 

His heart swelled when Eddie beamed at him. "I'm glad. I like you, too." 

Eddie had coaxed the subject slowly. It was later in the afternoon, they were eating pasta on the couch, Eddie's socked feet were resting against Richie's tucked knees, where they usually would be two separate entities, but Richie didn't move away. This soft sort of intimacy with Eddie made Richie almost feel more joy than shame. 

"Would you go to therapy?" Eddie asked him. It wasn't casually, but it wasn't urgent, either. Richie looked at him, his eyes were on the TV. He nodded, knowing Eddie could see him out of the corner of his eye. Eddie looked over at him, and nodded his understanding, and he didn't say anything more about it. 

Until he did. "Therapy is really helpful, at least for me. I haven't gone in a while, but I think that I'll start again. We'll both do it, how's that sound?" He was looking at Richie so hopefully, and Richie thought _what did you need to go to therapy for?_ but he just said; "Sounds good, Eds." 

Eddie didn't try to kiss him again, not even when they were facing each other, lying down next to each other. Richie had stopped trembling every time Eddie lay beside him, but his heart hammered all the same. He wondered if Eddie had tried to kiss him, what would happen? He was grateful Eddie hadn't, it seemed like he was trying to give him his own space, for him to decide when was the right time. Richie really liked Eddie and how he seemed to be just fine with Richie telling him that he liked him, like he was happy enough with that alone. 

Richie didn't sleep in a hoodie this time. It was dark, so he knew Eddie couldn't see him, but he could _feel_ them if he reached over in the night, and that terrified Richie more than anything else, but he felt like he owed Eddie at least something that he could provide. So he flipped his hoodie off over his head, too afraid to watch Eddie, who he knew was watching him, and he crawled under the covers beside him. After a moment, Eddie scooted closer, almost close enough to touch, but not quite. 

He felt his hand reaching for his, felt Eddie's fingers graze the raised scars on his arm. He stiffened, and Eddie pulled away. "I'm sorry," Richie said. 

"Don't be sorry," Eddie whispered. He felt his fingers, hesitant, reach his skin again. Richie lay deathly still, fighting every impulse in his body that said to pull away. Goosebumps prickled along his arms as Eddie ran the soft pads of his fingers over Richie's skin, explorative. After a while, his fingers came to Richie's own fingers, and Richie performed the familiar movement of spreading his fingers so Eddie could put his in the spaces between. The ragged scars on his arm were pressed right against the skin of Eddie's arm, but Eddie didn't seem to mind. 

"Still not leaving," Eddie mumbled into his pillow, and Richie relaxed enough to fall asleep. 

"So, Richie, why are you here today?" 

Eddie had booked him an appointment with a therapist the next day, the day after that, he had driven them both to the medical clinic. 

"I'll wait out here," Eddie said, encouragingly. He didn't seem to mind waiting in a boring waiting room with uncomfortable chairs for an hour. Richie felt more comfortable knowing that Eddie was on the other side of the wall if he needed him. Perhaps Eddie knew that would be the case, he always seemed to know those things that Richie didn't consciously realize. 

"I need therapy," Richie said, and then, because that was too vague, he continued; "A month ago, I was going to kill myself. I don't want to die now, but it's- it's really hard to not think about doing it all the time, how everyone would be better without me, and all that." He shifted in his chair, squirming under this woman- Carrie was her name- gaze on him. 

"Have you ever taken antidepressants?" She asked him. He shook his head. 

"I was prescribed them around the time I got back from-" he cut himself off. 

"Back from where?" Carrie asked, almost like she was a bloodhound sniffing some delicious traumatic backstory. 

"From..." Richie paused. "camp." 

"It seems like you're hesitant to talk about this camp you went to," Carrie said. Richie nodded in agreement. "Was this a summer camp?" Richie shook his head. She considered him, before she said; "Was this a camp targeted towards converting your sexuality?" Richie nodded, and he could see the flicker in her eyes, her _aha! _moment where she now had something to latch onto, questions she could ask him, prompt him to answer. 

"So tell me, do you think that that time in your life has something to do with these suicidal thoughts you're having?" 

After Richie had told Carrie about his being diagnosed with depression and his mother hiding his medication, along with every other personal detail she'd roped out of him, she had been able to find his records through their system, and had given him a piece of paper with her initials on it and instructions to take it to the nearest pharmacy. 

When he walked out an hour later, Eddie was sitting exactly where he said he'd be. He saw Richie and immediately stood up to greet him. 

"What's that?" He asked, pointing to the piece of paper in his hand. 

"My prescription, can we go to the pharmacy?" 

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me that I'm low on my meds," Eddie replied. 

"For your anxiety?" Richie asked. Eddie nodded. 

"Whatever it's going to cost, all of this, I'll pay you back, Eds. I'll get a job and then I'll pay you back-" 

"No." Eddie interrupted him, firmly. "I don't want you getting a job, not until you're better. And," his voice softened. "I like coming home to you." 

A few weeks ago, the fact that Eddie wholeheartedly had faith that Richie would get better would make him miserable, make him hate himself for giving Eddie any sort of hope at all. Now, he wanted to do any possible thing for Eddie, he wanted to be with him. 

"I need to make another appointment real quick, then we can go," Richie said, and Eddie was like the sun, absolutely beaming. 

For all the shit that therapy gets, Richie feels lighter and more hopeful than he ever has in years. 

Eddie comes home a day later to Richie dry-heaving into the sink. 

"Rich!" He rushed to him immediately, dropping his jacket onto the floor without hanging it, his small hands covering Richie's shoulders. Richie stands straight immediately, embarrassed by the display. "M' fine, fine," he mumbles through his hoodie sleeve, wiping his mouth with the material. 

"Richie, what's wrong?" Eddie always knows, always knows that something is definitely wrong when Richie says he's fine before Eddie's even asked. He knows him so well now, can read him like a book. Richie isn't the elusive, somewhat reasonably desirable man with secrets Eddie wants to know anymore, he's just a broken, dependant man who Eddie knows absolutely everything about, who knows he's beyond help and still manages to help in small ways anyways, small ways he probably doesn't know unless Richie tells him. 

And then Richie's phone rings from the counter. He can see the second Eddie realizes who's calling him, can see the way he scowls. Richie reaches to grab it, but Eddie puts a hand overtop of his. Richie pulls away, and then he remembers. It's just Eddie. Eddie is okay to touch. And he reaches out for Eddie's hand again, a silent apology, Eddie accepts it, his features soft again as he looks at him. 

"Don't answer it," Eddie says, his voice is soft yet demanding, his facial features don't change, it gives Richie a slight feeling of whiplash. "Fuck your mom, and whatever she said to you. Richie, you don't need her." 

_"You need to get out of that house and away from that dirty man before he convinces you to join his way of life. Richie, don't make me tell your father, you know how he gets about you." _

Richie just stares at his phone screen, his phone vibrating against the counter, Eddie staring at him, until the call finally drops. 

_"You're not letting him do things to you, are you?" _

Richie had hung up, because he couldn't tell his mother what she wanted to hear, which is that he hadn't been, hadn't liked all of it, wanted more than what Eddie said and did. 

"What'd she say, Richie?" Eddie asked him. Since Richie had answered Eddie's questions after a month and a half of avoiding them, Eddie didn't bother to keep his ponderings to himself at all. He was worse than he was before, when Richie hadn't wanted to reveal too much. Now Richie could barely say no to his face, he would give Eddie practically anything he wanted. 

"She's going to sick my father on me." His voice was completely devoid of humour, despite him trying his absolute best to pass it off like it was no big deal, but he started shaking when he said it. And of course, Eddie noticed. 

"No, no, she's not. I won't let anything happen to you, Richie, you understand?" Eddie's face was so close to his own, he didn't say anything, for fear his breath smelled like vomit. "You're safe now." 

Richie was so fucking tired of crying in front of Eddie, letting him see so much of what he struggled to hide from him, but he was so fucking terrified that his father would come barreling through the front door, Richie's mother remembered Eddie's address, after all, and he would kill him, maybe kill them both. He would do it easily, Richie knew. And so he cried, he stepped easily into Eddie's outstretched arms and took a shuddering breath into Eddie's shoulder while he felt his hands circle around his waist. Eddie fit into his body like he was meant to be there, he was so warm and his frame was so small, Richie had to bend to reach his shoulder, but everything, besides the guilt that circled inside his stomach every time he let Eddie touch him, seemed alright when he was in Eddie's proximity. 

Eddie fought to be able to decide to waste his time and energy on him, he would let Eddie decide too, when he'd grow tired of it all. 

After awhile of ignoring her calls, his mother finally gave up trying to talk to him. He's been so ambiguous, not bothering to deny anything she accused of him of between him and Eddie, so it would be no surprise when she disowned him completely, all her friends from church back home holding her while she cried, sympathy on all of their faces when she told them Satan had gotten to her son, he was too far gone for help, all they could do was pray that he saw the lord's light and followed his true plan again. And the thought was more of a relief than anything else, but the thought of her telling his father all that she thought she knew about him and Eddie was what truly terrified him. Despite Eddie beside him, he found it increasingly hard to sleep, trembling with every noise he heard outside the window, picturing his father, coming to do what he'd wanted to since he'd been born. 

He was so terrified that he couldn't stay in the house by himself, opting to sit in the backseat, quiet, during all of Eddie's driving gigs. Today, Eddie had taken an hour off to go to his second therapist appointment. His old therapist had retired since he'd seen him last, and he'd stressed to Richie how hard it was to recount every single thing to somebody entirely new, but he remained optimistic, at least to Richie's face. Richie had no idea if he felt the same way inwardly. 

"Are you sure you want to stay out here?" Eddie asked, craning his neck to address Richie in the backseat, while simultaneously gathering his notepad in his arm. He wrote everything he wanted to say down before every appointment. 

"Yes," Richie replied. He preferred sitting out in the car compared to the waiting room. Since starting his medication, besides being drowsy pretty much all the time, he was feeling better emotionally about social situations in which he'd be without Eddie. Still, he didn't want to test his boundaries when he could instead nod off in the back seat. 

Eddie got out of the front seat, closing the door, and then coming to Richie's side and opening the door. It was a gesture that Richie knew was because Eddie preferred to be face to face, even just to say goodbye, rather than bending around in the front seat. "Alright." He said, his eyes were on his phone below his chin for a moment before he looked up and nodded to Richie's right side. Richie looked over and saw Eddie calling his phone. He smiled, swiping the screen to answer the call. 

"Please don't get in an accident," Eddie said, jokingly, handing Richie the car keys. Richie saluted him as he closed the door and walked through the parking lot. He watched Eddie put his phone to his ear. Richie did the same, but Eddie wasn't saying anything, just breathing, and Richie had a momentary thought of how pathetic it was that he found instant comfort from the sound of Eddie's breathing. He knew that Eddie did, too. He knew that Eddie had gotten accustomed to having Richie on the line wherever he went, and knew that it was something that calmed his anxiety. 

Richie muted himself, so any noise on his end didn't ring out in the quiet of Eddie's appointment, and he listened to Eddie breathing, telling the receptionist he was there for an appointment, and the shuffling noises of the phone as Eddie sat in the waiting room, waiting for his name to be called. Usually, he would have muted himself by now, Richie knowing he was still on the line, but so he wouldn't hear his appointment. Richie slumped down in the backseat and fell asleep to the sound of Eddie's breathing. 

"-actually just minty water." 

Richie woke up, still in Eddie's car, a bad kink in his neck from where he'd had it leaned on his shoulder. 

"I found out that it wasn't real medication when I was fourteen, and then I stood up to my mother about lying to me, and then I went right back to using it, because I was dependant by that point." 

For a moment, Richie can't pinpoint where the voice is coming from. Still groggy from sleep, he doesn't immediately realize that the voice belongs to Eddie's. He groans and looks over at his phone. He only slept for about twenty minutes, Eddie's still in his appointment. 

"What did your mother do when you kept using them?" 

Richie realizes then that the voices are coming from his phone. It's a moment later when he realizes he's listening in to Eddie's appointment. Eddie must have forgotten to mute his end. 

"She got smarter. After I first realized all the medications were bullshit, she came up with new excuses to make me believe I was sick in some way, and I'd become so resigned, after thinking I could overcome my mother, only to fall back into it again, I just let it happen." 

_Should he hang up? _He knew it was the right thing to do, but Richie didn't want to hang up on Eddie, to lose the validation that he was just a sentence away. And Eddie was talking about his mother, something Richie hadn't heard a lot about, but hadn't asked, either. It was a sore spot for Eddie, and Richie wanted to know more, even if it meant eavesdropping. If Eddie realized he hadn't muted himself, Richie would pretend he'd been asleep the entire time. 

"And when I was beginning to figure out I was gay, she- she made me believe these awful things, this was when the AIDS crisis was getting huge, you see. She fed off of it, she made me believe that I was going to get AIDS no matter what, just for being gay. Nobody really knew much about prevention back then. So I spent a considerable amount of my teen years being terrified, thinking I was sick, but in a whole different way. And I guess that's where all my anxiety stems from." 

"How did you finally decide to leave your mother's influence?" 

"She died," Eddie replied, and the lack of any emotion in his voice made Richie shiver. "And then I moved, found my own footing, went through a shit ton of therapy, and I still have panic attacks sometimes, not as often as I used to but, Richie-he helps me a lot." 

"And Richie is the man you mentioned to me in your last session?" 

_Hang up dipshit, hang up. _

Eddie must have just nodded because Richie didn't hear any response. "How is that going?" 

"Good," Eddie said, simply, but the way that he said it was off, like there was something he wasn't saying. He was quick to elaborate, though. "I mean, better than before. He's letting me hug him, sometimes we'll cuddle on the couch. Sometimes, he doesn't pull his hand away when I try to hold it, but he- he always looks just terrified every time." 

"And how does that make you feel?" 

Richie was holding his breath, waiting for Eddie to respond. He wanted to cry, the majority of him sincerely did not want to hear Eddie talk about how hard it was to deal with him, coddle him like a child, but he still couldn't bring himself to hang up, to stop listening. 

"I don't know." He let out a heavy sigh. "Not great, obviously. Sometimes he's the one who wants to hug me, or hold my hand, but then I'm not sure whether it's okay to do it again the next time. The last thing I want to do is make him feel like I'm not safe." 

"Do you think that you're doing a lot of internalizing of these reactions from Richie when you want to do things that he doesn't want to do, or may have wanted one day, but doesn't want another day?" 

Eddie pauses. "Yeah," he replies, thoughtfully. "It's hard to remember that Richie likes me, even if it doesn't always feel like he does." 

_I do like you. I like you so much. _Richie had tears running down his face. He didn't bother to wipe them away. 

"And it sounds like, from what you've told me, Richie has a lot of trauma that he's working through right now. His reactions towards physical contact likely don't have anything to do with you as a specific factor." 

"Right," Eddie agreed. 

_I'm sorry I'm so sorry. I wish I could be more. _

"But it sounds like you're both making progress, Richie sounds a lot more comfortable with you now than he did during our last session. That's because he's slowly recognizing that you're a safe space for him, Eddie. You should be proud of yourself for that." 

Richie turned the volume all the way down, and he jumped when Eddie's knuckles rapped on the window. He unlocked the doors, handing Eddie back his keys. And when Eddie asked him why he was crying, Richie said; "Nightmare," and Eddie didn't say anything else about it. Some part of him, surely, knew, but he spared Richie the conversation. 

"So, I did some digging," Eddie says as they're crawling into bed that night. Richie looks at him, curiously as he lays, an elbow to prop himself on top of the blankets, facing Eddie. This is Richie's favourite part of the day, every day, when he lays beside Eddie in sheets that used to smell like him but now carry a strange combined smell of the both of them, and Eddie talks about his day and Richie listens. It's also the hardest time of the day, when Richie's facing Eddie, and it's so much harder to pretend he doesn't think Eddie could have so much more than this, more than him, if only he would let himself. Richie's having less of those thoughts now that the medication he's taking is starting to settle. 

"I'm really good at social media stalking, I'll have you know, I'm probably the best of our generation, in fact." 

"Jesus Christ, boast much?" Richie teases, and Eddie pretends to intend to throw a pillow in his face before he continues. "But, I was stalking your mom on Facebook," and Richie's body went tense and rigid. He could see Eddie notice, but he didn't try to grab Richie's hand. Richie wanted him to, he would try his best not to pull away. _Please, Eddie, I'm sorry, I don't mean to. I like when you hold my hand. _

"Richie, you dad's been dead for a year." 

The words hit him like a ton of bricks and the information lifts the suffocating weight off of his shoulders all at once. He collapses into the bed, so relieved that he starts to cry. 

"Your mom's been threatening you with empty threats!" Eddie keeps going, so much joy in his voice, he was bursting to tell Richie this all day. He leans his face close to Richie's close enough to touch, but he doesn't. "He's never going to hurt you again, Rich. Never." 

It feels like the threat of impending doom was following Richie around ever since he was little and he realized very quickly that nobody wanted to make friends with the kid with glasses too big for his face that were always broken and crooked and bruises on his arms and legs or just below the neck of his shirt. When he was fifteen and remembering the tidbits of his dreams that he woke up achingly hard from, where there weren't dazzling breasts clouding his vision, but parts that he was already familiar with, that he already had. 

He looked up at Eddie, his cheek against the pillow, and Eddie was smiling at him, winder than he'd ever seen. He was dazzling. Richie started to tremble. And Eddie's face immediately took up that of concern. "Richie? Are you-" 

Richie's trembling hand found Eddie's cheek, the skin heating in a blush under his palm. His skin was so soft and Richie's own heart was choking him and he wanted to touch Eddie, tell him how sorry he is, love him in every way he deserves. But there are only a few things he's capable of. 

"Rich," Eddie's voice was barely above a whisper. Why did he look so nervous? Richie was the one who was nervous. 

Richie couldn't look at Eddie's eyes, big and brown and looking at him so intently that it was the most intimate thing he'd ever experienced with anybody, so he stared at Eddie's parted lips instead, his destination, leaning in slowly, he watched Eddie's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. His hand moved from Eddie's cheek to his jaw and in the corner of his eye, he saw Eddie's hands at his sides, move like he would touch him, but stayed in place. He always let Richie set their pace. 

And it was like the knowledge that his father wasn't alive anymore, couldn't see through him like he was always convinced he could, released him in every way possible, like he could be what he was and it wouldn't mean that he had the only two options of being dead or fighting with every ounce of himself to fix it. He didn't feel so much hatred for himself when he thought about Eddie and being with Eddie and kissing Eddie. 

Their lips were a hair length apart. Richie stayed there, his eyes fluttering closed, frantically trying to calm the voices in his head, not wanting to have the battle while he was kissing Eddie. And Eddie didn't move forward, didn't connect them. Richie, finally, licked his lips against Eddie's lips and he felt him shiver and then he leaned in. 

It was soft, Richie knew nothing about kissing, but he knew that he wanted Eddie to be as close as he possibly could be. Eddie's lips moved eagerly against his and Richie felt another spout of guilt because he knew Eddie wanted this for so long, wanted to be kissed, and Richie couldn't give it to him, and it was like Eddie knew what he was thinking because his hand closed around Richie's hand holding his jaw, his other hand coming to hold Richie's waist and Richie never wanted to leave because everything around him was and should always be Eddie. 

They kissed for a long time, Richie's lips grappling over Eddie's bottom one, but Eddie didn't once try to deepen the kiss and neither did Richie. Eddie was the one to pull away, forehead resting against Richie's as he panted. 

"You're- are you okay?" He finally managed. And Richie just nodded, nodded and didn't stop nodding. His body was trembling so hard, but he knew with certainty that kissing Eddie was something he would never regret and it had felt like any number of things but not one of those things was a feeling of wrongness. 

"It's okay," Richie said, "to kiss me, I think. If you want to." And Eddie smiled at him and he didn't try to kiss him again, he just lifted the blankets and tucked them around Richie's limbs when he snuggled under them, and then he shifted beside Richie until he was comfortable. Richie waited for the familiar feeling of Eddie's hand finding his under the blankets, and it did, and Eddie's other hand was reaching forward and Richie closed his eyes as he felt Eddie's fingers combing through his thick curls. He expected for his body to tense, to tremble, to decide Eddie touching him was a mayday situation as it always did, but it didn't. Eddie softly grazed his fingers through Richie's scalp until he fell asleep.

Richie wakes in the middle of the night. Eddie has pulled his hand out of Richie's and it lazes near his sleeping form, as he usually does sometime in the night. Richie wakes up frequently throughout the night, usually from nightmares. But this time, something is different. He had a different sort of dream he woke up from. It hasn't happened to him for a few months, when it did, it would be the dream that Richie would run to his bathroom and run the bathtub red until he was satisfied he'd done the damage he deserved. 

Richie can't help staring at Eddie's lips in the darkness, his soft breaths parting them slightly. He's so peaceful looking, he looks even smaller than he does when he isn't sleeping. Richie tries and fails not to think about what Eddie's mouth had been doing in his dream. Eddie, who's so peaceful now, who might think Richie perverted for what he thought about with him, what he's thinking about.

Richie thinks about how Eddie kissed him, how his hands had been on his cheek, so tender and soft. Richie has the fleeting thought now that he could kiss Eddie, he could slip his tongue between his lips, taste him. He wants to taste Eddie. 

And suddenly that thought isn't fleeting. Suddenly that's all he can think about as he stares at his sleeping face. And sure, Richie has imagined countless things, but never with a specific person, sleeping right next to him, body so warm and comfortable, but he did and he does and what would Eddie say? His lip quivers when he feels it twitching, leaking from what he'd woken up from, because he's had a boner before from the thought of men, but Eddie, specifically, while he lays here unsuspecting. It makes him feel dirty and shameful and he can't stop thinking about Eddie's mouth on him while he thinks to himself how predatory and gross and sinful he is, how there's no hope for him, how he's too far gone and beyond help. It had seemed like things could be okay a few hours earlier, but now all the thoughts are rushing back and there's no comfortability with himself and the way he's thinking of Eddie while he sleeps. 

He retreats to his own room, careful not to wake Eddie, because he's aching and he knows he'll only make it worse laying beside Eddie's sleeping form. His hands are shaking as he slips one between his legs, he strokes himself, thinking of Eddie, sobbing the entire time. He falls asleep with tears dried on his cheeks. 

"You left last night," Eddie says. He's leaning against the doorframe. Richie couldn't stomach the thought of leaving his room, having to face Eddie after what he did. It's Sunday, so Eddie doesn't work, and he's dressed in his T-shirt and pyjama bottoms. 

Richie nods. He's cross-legged on top of the bed, wearing the baggiest hoodie he owns. Eddie notices, fuck, he always notices, and he comes to sit tentatively on the edge of the bed. "Did I do something that you didn't want?" 

Richie wants to cry hearing Eddie ask that, thinking he'd done something wrong. "No, no, you didn't do anything, I promise." 

"Then what's wrong?" Eddie asks, his eyes so large and boring directly into Richie's consciousness, where it's saying _tell him the truth_ because his therapist had told him that he needed to have open communication with Eddie about how he was feeling but he's so fucking scared of saying something like _that_, when Eddie's so soft and kind and innocent and unsuspecting and Richie feels like a completely gross, disgusting monster. 

"I had-" he takes a deep breath. Eddie is looking at him so intently, ready to comfort Richie over anything he'll say and fuck, Richie forgets for a moment the thoughts he's had about Eddie and how dirty he feels because all he feels right now are the purest feelings about this man who likes him and who he likes and maybe that's okay. "I had a dream about you last night, I felt- I didn't want to stay beside you after what I... I'm sorry, please don't hate me." And then he's crying for the umpteenth time and he can't look at Eddie's face and he's so scared and-

"Oh, goodness, Rich, look at me," Eddie says, his thumb finds Richie's chin and he lifts it, the most gentle anyone has ever touched Richie's face in his entire life. Richie looks into his eyes, always kind, always glistening. "There is not a realm of possibility where I would hate you for having a sex dream about me." Richie cringes slightly when he hears the words aloud. Eddie's face is so kind, the corners of his lips are curved up, he's so easily accepting. "It just means that you're human and have human desires. And you don't need to go next time that it happens, you can just come back to sleep. To be honest, I-" Eddie breaks off, looking at Richie sheepishly. "I sort of have a moment of panic when I wake up and you're not there." 

"Fuck, Eds, I'm-I'm sorry." Richie takes Eddie's hands that are on his face and holds them down between their laps, his heart hammering as he feels Eddie's thumb sweeping over his skin. 

"No need to apologize, I just wanted to be honest, like you just were. We're doing good, huh?" The look of hope on Eddie's face is going to send Richie over the edge, he's already crying, but why not cry some more? 

"How do you exist?" Richie ponders, more to himself than to Eddie, but he doesn't miss the blush that rises to Eddie's cheeks after he says it. Eddie reaches out and shoves his shoulder playfully. "Dork," he says, fondly. "Do you want to watch TV? We have no obligations today, we can just lay on the couch all day, if you want to?" 

"Anything you want, Eds." And Richie's getting used to saying stuff like that, words that are fond, words that are flirtatious. 

Once in the living room, Richie waits for Eddie to sit on the couch before he does, but then he notices that Eddie is waiting for him to sit first, to choose where he'll be most comfortable. 

_Tell him your feelings. _

"Do you want to, um, lay with me? It's fine if you don't." 

Eddie looks completely taken aback. Sometimes, they'd found themselves in a position where Richie would sit against Eddie's chest, and Eddie's arms tossed lazily over his thighs, but it was never something Richie ever explicitly requested. "Yeah," he says, breathy. Eddie plants his butt on the couch and then lays back, shifting to make room for Richie beside him. Richie comes closer, slowly lowering himself beside Eddie, his back flush against his chest. Eddie slowly moves his arm to lay over Richie's hip, while the other wriggles under Richie's head. Richie can feel Eddie's breath against his neck, and he laces his fingers through Eddie's against his stomach. 

Neither of them reaches for the remote to turn the TV on, they just breathe each other in and out, Richie closing his eyes against the feeling of Eddie's rising chest against his back. 

"Have you ever had sex before?" he asks before he can think better of it, before he has a chance to second-guess whether it's okay to talk about sex with Eddie, whether it's okay to talk about sex with a man at all. 

"Yeah," Eddie replies, playing with Richie's fingertips with his own. Richie's body is trembling slightly, thinking too much into Eddie, pressed into him, Eddie, breathing against his neck, Eddie, being okay with his dream about him. 

"Was it fun?" 

He feels the outtake of breath, signifying a chuckle against his neck, just above his shoulder. He shivers. "It was okay, the second time was better. My first time was with a girl." 

"Is it as good as everyone says?" 

He feels Eddie shrug behind him. "I had a hard time staying hard, so it was awkward." 

_Eddie. Hard. Eddie. Hard. _

"The second time was good," Eddie continued, unprompted. Richie listened to him talk. "He wanted to be the bottom though, so that wasn't ideal." 

"You're..." Richie began, not sure how to phrase what he was asking. "You like... having it in?" He cringed at how awkward the question sounded. He was trembling so hard, but Eddie didn't seem to mind. 

"Yeah," Eddie replied, his voice was soft, but husky at the same time. Richie swallowed. "Do you- do you think about it a lot?" He could feel himself approaching dangerous territory, he could feel his foot crossing the threshold, but he couldn't stop himself, once he realized he could stomach the conversation, he wanted to have it. 

"Sex?" Eddie asked. Richie hummed. "I think about it a normal amount, I think." _But how often is that? _Richie was struck by just how intensely he wanted to know the answer. "But yeah, I do. Is that okay?" 

"Why are you asking me if it's okay?" Richie asked, perplexed. 

Eddie was silent for a while. He disconnected their hands, and Richie realized quickly it was so that Richie could make a quick escape if he wanted to. "Because there's nobody else I'm thinking about having sex with." 

And those words went directly to Richie's dick. He let out a shaky breath, and he did pitch forward, slightly, but it was just so he could have room to roll over, facing Eddie. Eddie's face was dark with his blush. Richie gazed at his lips, and then his eyes, that were already watching his every move, waiting for him to pull away. But he didn't. Richie put his hand against Eddie's neck, and Eddie's lips parted with a gasp from how cold his hands were against his heated skin, and then Richie pressed his lips to his. He didn't know what he was doing when he put his thumb on Eddie's chin, pressing down slightly so Eddie parted his mouth, licking the inside of Eddie's bottom lip, feeling Eddie's hands fly directly to take a hold of his hips. 

When he felt Eddie's tongue slide against his own, a low groan sounded from deep in his throat, and he felt Eddie grip him tighter, pulling him closer. Richie pulled away, just to look into Eddie's eyes, his flushed cheeks, lips moist. And then he kissed him again, surprising himself by how hard he pressed into him when he did, his hand flying to the back of Eddie's neck, tugging on his hair. Eddie let out a soft breath into his mouth, and that was when Eddie rolled his hips against Richie's, when Richie felt something hard graze his thigh, when he froze. 

"Fuck. Shit, Rich, I'm sorry, I d-didn't-" 

Richie leaned forward and kissed Eddie's chin, kissing his jaw and down his neck. Eddie let out surprised gasps and deep inhales of breath. "Richie, are you-are you _sure?" _

He was asking because Richie was shaking like a leaf. But Richie had never been so sure of anything in his life. And Eddie, he was very sure of Eddie. 

Richie pulled Eddie closer, flush against his chest, kissing his neck and breathing against his skin and loving every moment of Eddie, this close to him. He pressed his lips below Eddie's ear, experimentally, and heard Eddie gasp, felt his hips jerk. Richie pulled him closer, impossibly so, so he could feel his erection pressing against his thigh, so Eddie could feel his, too. He just wanted to feel it against him. Eddie was hard. He'd made Eddie hard. There was nothing more infinitely gratifying in the entire world. 

"Can I watch you?" Richie asked against Eddie's collarbone, and he didn't even need to clarify what he was asking for. Eddie pulled his hand from Richie's hip and down, into his pyjama pants. Richie still wanted nothing more than to be pressed up against him, but he wriggled his hips backwards, just a bit, to give Eddie room. Richie watched, cheek pressed against Eddie's chest, as Eddie stroked himself inside of his boxers. His breath hitched over the first stroke, and Richie watched the outline of his hand, moving over it, mesmerized. 

Richie was so achingly hard watching Eddie grip himself so tight, feeling his gasping breaths against his hair. But he didn't dare touch himself, the idea of it- getting off to Eddie getting off, felt wrong, disgusting. And he was watching Eddie and pretending like it was fine, like his pants weren't constricting. 

Richie shifted his hips, slightly, the rest of his body still clung tightly to Eddie's, his arm straining against Richie's chest where he was moving it. Eddie noticed his shift. "Are you...?" Richie knew what he was asking. His hand had stopped moving. 

"Yeah," he admitted, breathlessly. Eddie let out a tiny whine in response. "I'm- can I just watch you?" He felt Eddie nod, he still wasn't looking at him, only staring where his hand was inside the waistband of his pants, feeling his heartbeat against his ear. It was erratic, it matched Richie's. 

"Is it okay?" Eddie asked him, his voice was so low and raspy. 

"Can you- can you tell me it's okay?" Richie asked, swallowing hard. The feelings, the thoughts, were hard to ignore. Watching Eddie like this, it was dirty, sometimes it helped when Eddie vocalized to him that it was okay, whatever it was they were partaking in. Sometimes it silenced everything completely- Eddie saying it was okay, and sometimes it didn't. 

Eddie was stroking himself slower now, a slow rhythm that Richie watched, aching, gripping Eddie's back and hips hard. "You have to look at me." Eddie said. And Richie, slowly, leaned his face up to look at him. And god. Eddie's face was completely red, his eyes were slightly glazed, he was alternating between biting and licking his lips. His ears and neck were flushed, from Richie watching him so intently. Through any anxiety he might've been feeling, he was reassuring Richie, and Richie knew that he loved him. 

"It's okay, Rich." He began, he was looking into Richie's eyes, but he closed them every now and again and fluttered them back open, letting out shaky breaths between words. Richie felt his arm moving against his stomach, so slowly. "This is just us, and I want you to see me."

"I want to see you," Richie said, and Eddie nodded, swallowing thickly. Richie looked back down and saw Eddie stop for a moment, bringing the waistband of his pants down low on his hips, his erection now in plain sight, his small hands wrapping around it perfectly. Richie felt more than heard the groan escape his throat, how he started salivating. This was his first time looking at a penis that wasn't his own, and he found it more beautiful than anything more than he felt disgusted for looking at it. 

"This is for you, because I want you. I want you in every way." Eddie was still talking, his hand still moving, so slow, he was struggling not to release, to ruin the moment. But Richie wanted him to, wanted to see the face he made when he did. "And you-" he choked on his words, sounding unsure of them. "You want me too." 

"Yes," Richie agreed, wanting to ease Eddie's anxieties, knowing he felt like he didn't want him, but he did, he wanted him so bad. 

"It's not bad for you to want me, it feels-feels good," he moaned slightly over his words, sounding like he was talking about his hand, Richie watching him, more than he was talking about Richie. "And it's not bad, you're not inherently dirty, Rich, and neither am I. Neither are we. You deserve to feel good, nothing is bad about that. You're allowed, and-" and Eddie took in a shaky breath and Richie looked up at him and saw his eyes close and his mouth part open even more and he felt his hand going faster, felt Eddie's hips jerk with his orgasm. He was so beautiful. 

"Thank you," Richie said, and he leaned in and kissed him, and Eddie loosely kissed back, mostly just breathing heavily into his mouth, and Richie kissed him throughout his high until he felt Eddie's hand on his chest and he shivered into it. 

"Reassurance is my ideal foreplay, I guess." Richie quipped, pulling away. Eddie looked at him, said; "Richie, you..." he guestured to Richie's hips, awkwardly, and Richie didn't want to pull away from Eddie, but he knew Eddie would want to clean himself up anyways, he was going to get up at some point. 

"I don't- I'm not sure I can do it... with you, yet." He said, regretfully. Eddie just put his hand, the one that wasn't covered in semen, on Richie's cheek. "It's okay," he said. "Was watching me okay for you? Are you alright?" 

"Can I watch you again, when you're..." he trailed off. Eddie nodded at him, the encouraging smile on his face making Richie's heart jump in his chest. "You can watch me anytime you want, if it's helping you." 

"I like you so much," Richie said, kissing Eddie on the corner of his mouth, lingering. I love you, he wanted to say, but he didn't. If there was anything that scared him the most, it was saying that to Eddie, admitting something Eddie probably didn't feel the same, the fear of rejection was still so fruitful within him. 

"I like you too," Eddie replied, and Richie slowly detached himself from him, pretending not to see the way Eddie's eyes landed on the tent in his pants when he stood up. He retreated to his room, relieving himself in the same time it took Eddie to wash his hands in the bathroom sink. He thought of the way Eddie's face had looked when he came, and he didn't cry with shame. 

Richie wasn't aware of just how often Eddie got off until after that day on the couch. It was just a few hours later, when Eddie was going to shower, that he came back into his bedroom and said to Richie; "Were you serious, about wanting to watch me?" And Richie nodded, and Eddie blushed and he said; "I usually do it when I shower. Would you like me to wait until I get out?" And Richie knew he was asking because he thought it would be too much for him to see him naked, for the first time, no less, just hours after their first sexual encounter. 

"No. I'd like- I'd like to see." Richie replied, and he saw Eddie's quick intake of breath. "Alright. Um, just give me a minute, and then you can come on in." Richie nodded, and Eddie fled to the bathroom down the hall. After a moment of Richie sitting in silence, his heart pounding in his ears, he heard the shower start, and he guessed, hoped, that that was his cue to enter. 

He slowly padded down the hall, the door wasn't closed, and as he entered, he didn't close it behind him. The idea of Eddie, naked, in a small bathroom, and the door closed behind him- he tried not to think about it as he took in the scene. Eddie's clothes he'd been wearing were neatly folded in the corner, the clothes he'd be changing into neatly folded on top of the toilet seat. He moved them aside so he could sit, his knees shaking. 

"Are you there, Rich?" Eddie's small voice sounded, he almost couldn't hear it over the running water. "Yes," Richie replied, loudly, so he could be heard. A moment later, Eddie brought back the curtain and peeked his head out, smiling at Richie when he met his eyes. His hair was darker than usual, plastered to his forehead. Richie had seen Eddie with his hair damp, curling around his neck and his ears, but this- this was something different and even more erotic entirely. 

"Are you still doing okay?" Eddie asked him, his voice so soft and concerned that it made Richie want to cry. He loved him, he loved him so damn much. He loved this man like he loved nothing else, like he was told all of his life that he shouldn't, and for as little as it was probably worth, loving Eddie made this situation and any other so much easier on him, so much less wrong. 

"I'm excited," Richie said, honestly. Eddie chuckled, his cheeks flushing pink. "Okay, well, let me know if you're not doing okay, at any point, okay?" Richie nodded at him, and then Eddie smiled nervously, muttering "Okay, okay" to himself, before he slowly drew the curtain back, and Richie gaped. 

He stared at Eddie's soft stomach, somehow completely flat and the perfect amount of pudgy at the same time, his hips were so soft and curved inward, hipbones jutting out just slightly, he had the lightest trail of hair from his belly button down below where Richie had ever seen before. His nipples were just as pink as Richie imagined them to be, he had the slightest bit of chest hair, not a lot, but it was clear that he kept himself neatly groomed, every inch of hair on him was shaped and trimmed neatly. Richie licked his lips as he stared at Eddie's half-hard erection, which twitched noticably when Richie laid his eyes on it. He almost didn't feel any guilt over taking his time to look. 

"Eddie," Richie murmured, softly, and Eddie laughed nervously. The water was running down his body, drops of water clinging to his collarbones, Richie felt himself growing hard watching him, and he hadn't even started doing anything yet. 

Eddie backed his body up against the wall of the shower, his eyes never left Richie's as he lowered his hand and started stroking himself, his lips parted just slightly, but he didn't look away from Richie. Richie just took it all in, watching Eddie growing hard in his hand as his fist closed over his hardness and moved up and down again and again. A soft moan left his mouth and he immediately clamped his mouth closed. 

"I want to hear you," Richie encouraged, knowing Eddie was worried his sounds of pleasure would trigger him. Eddie groaned at his words, his hand moving slightly faster before going back to it's slow, steady rhythm. Richie realized then, that Eddie seemed to like to take his time, where Richie was rushed and hurried, Eddie was slow and his grip was tight, teasing. Or he was just giving Richie a show, which seemed unlikely. 

Eddie was fully hard in his hand now, his head was flushed and dripping and Richie couldn't stop the whispered "fuck" that came out of his mouth, Eddie seemed to hear it, his hips raising from the wall, slightly. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, so enthralled with watching Eddie, his breaths coming out ragged and his soft moans, biting his lip and his eyes never left Richie, not even once. 

Richie absently palmed himself through his pants, offering some relief, and Eddie groaned when he did. "You make me so hard, Eddie," he said, and relished the sound of Eddie gasping in surprise, his words going directly to his dick. He wanted Eddie to know just how much he wanted him, how even if he couldn't properly stomach the thought of Eddie watching him, doing anything besides this with Eddie right now, he wanted to. 

"You look..." he trailed off, licking his lips, his heart was beating so hard in his chest, unsure, for a moment, whether these things were okay to be saying. "so hot." he finished, watching as Eddie muttered "fuck" to himself in response, going slightly faster in pace. "You look so good like this, Eds, getting off while I watch you." He paused, worried how Eddie would take that, but then Eddie's hand was flying to his mouth to devour his moans and even though he did, Richie still heard his name moaned from Eddie's mouth. 

He watched, his cheeks considerably hot as Eddie stroked himself through his orgasm, his hips jerking from his position on the wall, his head leaning back and his neck exposed, shuddering as he moaned through it. Richie wanted to kiss him, but he didn't want to get wet, and anyway, he had a pressing problem he had to take care of. 

And that was how it went for the next few weeks, Richie would watch Eddie masturbate, and then go relieve himself in a different room. Before, Richie only got off if he absolutely had to, ignoring his morning wood until he grew slack, declining to get off in the shower where he knew Eddie took space in. But Eddie liked to masturbate at least twice a day, sometimes more, and Richie was watching him every single time, so Richie was now getting off far more often than he used to be, getting off to Eddie getting off, but he was growing comfortable with that, masturbating in general, and masturbating to the thought of Eddie. 

And Eddie never once complained about how often Richie watched him, but how he wasn't allowed to watch Richie. And Richie appreciated this but also hated it. If Eddie was so agonizingly patient with him, Richie felt that he would be slower to finally be ready than if Eddie would just push him. But he knew, Eddie didn't want a single thing from him unless he was absolutely comfortable giving it to him. And that was why Richie loved him so dearly. And loving Eddie was such an intense and pure, persisting feeling, that it made him feel so light and good most of the time, like an almost permanent distraction from all the guilt and the shame and slowly, he was hanging onto the idea that he could be happy with Eddie, he could give his all to Eddie. 

He'd been thinking about it for weeks, he wanted to execute it. He took time the night before to truly think it over, let his body get all it's trembling out of the way. He could do this, he would do this, he wanted to do this. 

Richie had woken sometime in the early morning, his heart hammering as he roused and watched Eddie beside him, watched the way his lips formed words that weren't being said aloud in his sleep, the way his hips twitched. Richie had seen Eddie wake up from wet dreams before, in the past few weeks, he'd been having a lot more, or at least, he wasn't hiding that he was having them, perhaps he'd been having just as much before, but he hadn't let Richie know it. 

Eddie cradled Eddie's cheek in his palm, leaning over to kiss him softly from sleep. "Eds," he whispered softly, brushing the hair on his forehead with his fingers. Eddie murmured sweetly, but didn't wake. Richie slowly took the blankets off of him, inhaling quickly at the sight of Eddie's hardness straining against his pyjama pants. He straddled his legs, careful not to put his weight on him, and rocked back and forth slowly. 

"Mhmm," Eddie groaned, opening his bleary eyes and gazing at Richie on top of him, smiling at him. "Good morning," Richie said, smiling. It took a few minutes before Eddie realized the slight friction against him was coming from Richie. On top of him. 

"Richie?" he asked, confused, sitting up hastily on the bed. Richie followed his body with his own. He slowly ran his hands along Eddie's thighs, comfortingly, and also what he hoped was seductive. Eddie swallowed. "What are- what are you doing?" 

"I was thinking I'd solve your little problem there," Richie replied, laying his body overtop Eddie's, leaning his face in, so Eddie's erection was pressed up against his stomach, so Eddie knew that Richie could feel it. He kissed Eddie, he was comfortable kissing Eddie now, without prompt, and Eddie leaned into the kiss, sliding his tongue over Richie's, and Richie slowly slid his hands from Eddie's thighs to his waistband, bringing his hand under it. 

Eddie pulled away. "You're touching me," he said, it was a statement but he phrased it almost like a question. Richie nodded, slowly lowering his hand. Eddie groaned, his hand coming to loosely hold Richie's wrist, like he'd pull his hand away. "Wait. Richie, are you-" 

"Please, I want to," Richie said. He watched Eddie's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, but he just nodded, and Richie resumed what he was doing, and Eddie kept his hand over top of his as he went. Slowly, he grazed his fingers over the trail of hair on Eddie's stomach, and then his fingers found the tip of his erection. Eddie sucked in a breath when he did, and Richie hesitantly wrapped his fingers around it, pumping experimentally. Eddie's hips jerked slightly, he moaned, moving his hand over top of Richie's, setting the pace that he liked. 

With his other hand, Richie pulled Eddie's pants down his hips. Eddie obediently lifted his hips, letting the clothing pool at his feet. Nothing had made Richie so hard to date than the sight of his own hand, so much bigger than Eddie's were, wrapped around his dick, while Eddie lay there, panting and moaning. 

Richie shifted, so he was hovering over top of him. Eddie opened his eyes to look at him, lips parted as if he were going to say something, but then Richie kissed him, and tightened his hand around him, just slightly, and Eddie moaned directly into his mouth. Richie kissed Eddie's cheek and his jaw and moved down to his neck, and after a moment's hesitation, down to his collarbones and chest. As he lowered, his own erection rubbed against Eddie's bare thigh, making him gasp. But it wasn't about him right now, it was about Eddie, how he was rubbing him in his hand and how he loved every second of it. 

He kissed Eddie's chest, listening to the way Eddie's breathing got even more erratic as his lips found his nipple, and he sucked on it, and his hips bucked against his hand. 

"Richie," Eddie whined, and Richie moved to his lower stomach, kissing his hips. "Say that again," he breathed into Eddie's skin, so close to where his hand was working him. 

"Richie," Eddie moaned again, obediently. Richie sucked on his skin and Eddie's hand was in his hair, tugging just slightly. Before Eddie could second-guess his horny actions, Richie hummed in approval, and his hand stayed in his hair. 

_This is it_, Richie thought to himself. He lowered, removed his hand, felt Eddie whine from the loss, and then felt Eddie shift once he realized what was happening. "Are you-" 

"Do you want me to?" Richie asked, his voice deep and full of lust, and he could only think about one thing right then, his face inches from Eddie's erection, how much he wanted it in his mouth, wanted to taste Eddie. 

"I'm-" Eddie swallowed. "Yes." And Richie brought the head between his lips, took the rest in. Eddie hissed and tried his hardest not to thrust his hips, not to rush Richie. Richie swirled his tongue around the head and tasted Eddie's pre-cum and thought he was seeing the afterlife, he was so blissed out. 

"Ughh, Richie, I can't- you're so good, Richie, I- fuck." Eddie threw his head back on the pillow as Richie took him farther in, lowering himself while he sucked and coming back up, swirling his tongue around the head before going back down and doing the same thing. 

There was nothing more that Richie wanted to hear for the rest of his life than Eddie, moaning in pleasure because of him. Eddie tugged his hair, urging his head back, and Richie took him out of his mouth, giving the head a last, long suck before using his hand to finish Eddie off. Eddie arched his back as he came all over Richie's hand. Richie made sure Eddie was watching him as he touched his tongue to his hand, tasting Eddie's cum, and when he didn't hate it, he licked off some more, and Eddie widened his eyes and said "goddamn, fuck." 

Richie shifted, getting off of Eddie's half-naked form, and coming to lay beside him. Before he could second-guess himself, he started stripping off his pants, wiping his hand on the material. He expected Eddie to say something about it, but he didn't. He just said "Richie," questioningly. 

"Will you watch me?" Richie asked, his hands shaking as he slipped his boxers down his legs. He could see Eddie struggling to look him in the eyes as he nodded, his eyes went to Richie's erection. Richie flushed as he watched Eddie watch him, seeing him for the first time. He slowly wrapped his hand around himself, starting to move, feeling Eddie's eyes on him. He tried to hide the fact that his hands were shaking, but it was so obvious that Eddie noticed. 

"It's okay," he whispered to him, his pupils were blown wide, and he still found the time for reassurance. And Richie loved him. 

He tried to go slow, to give Eddie a show, but eventually, it was too much and he went faster, the pace building him up the way that he liked, and he groaned, lifting his hips as he came, closing his eyes so he didn't have to see Eddie's face as he watched him come right beside him. 

Breathing heavily, Richie finally chanced a glance over beside him, and Eddie looked so happy that he thought he might start crying. Maybe it wasn't the right time, considering what had just occurred, maybe it was because of how happily Eddie was looking at him, or that the feelings were practically bursting out of him. But he said it. 

"I love you, Eddie." 

His voice was so small, so scared, and he watched Eddie's face change. The way his eyes widened when he heard him, his lips parted, the tears that built in his eyes. 

"I love you too, Richie," Eddie whispered, and he cupped Richie's cheek and he kissed him. "So much," he muttered into his mouth between breaths. And the feeling of Eddie touching him brought so much calm to Richie's storms, it was like he was meant to be beside Eddie, meant to be seen by him, in every way. And a lot of things about Richie were changing, but Eddie was a constant. Eddie never wavered. Eddie could singlehandedly save somebody's entire life. 

Richie woke up every morning and the first thing he did was tell Eddie that he loved him. Eddie didn't need to be awake for him to say it, he just felt _good_ saying it, like nothing else could take away the joy he felt from loving Eddie. Last night, Eddie had sucked him off in the shower, they almost always showered together, and the way his lips felt around him, Eddie made Richie feel good in every possible way, it made Richie remember and smile when he woke up, just thinking about how much he loved Eddie, and how much Eddie loved him. 

Richie didn’t feel like he was dirty or disgusting every time Eddie touched him, but it still happened sometimes. Richie liked to watch Eddie using a dildo on himself, imagining that it was him instead. Richie didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for that, it seemed like it was one final step that would either find him at the top of his steep climb, or find him hurtling off the edge. 

Eddie never pushed Richie to do anything that he didn’t want to do, and there were a lot of things that Richie did want to do and that he had no trouble executing, so there was hope. Some day, maybe he’d be able to go all the way. 

“I don’t care about that, Rich. I just want you in any way you’re able to give me,” Eddie had told him when he’d brought it up. And Eddie was still so good to him, there wasn’t a single thing Richie felt that he didn’t tell Eddie about. They were disgustingly honest with each other in every sense. 

These days, Richie was waking up before Eddie was. He'd finally gotten himself a job, playing music at the radio station. He wasn't the announcer or anything, although he did get to have his voice on the radio when someone was sick. His favourite was when Eddie told him that he'd heard his voice on the radio while he was driving somebody around, and ended up bragging to them about who it was they were listening to. He wasn’t allowed to wear hoodies to work, so he’d started wearing long sleeved shirts under the Hawaiian style button-ups that he loves. Eddie says he looks stupid, but Richie feels good in them. He wears short sleeves at home with Eddie, sometimes no shirt at all, that’s what really matters to him.

Someday, he’ll make his way up the ladder. But for now, Richie is perfectly content with being mostly behind the scenes. 

When people asked if Richie had a girlfriend, because apparently, there were some listeners who really liked his voice when they heard it, he liked to just shrug apologetically and flash the photo of Eddie he had as his lock screen. It’s a photo he took while Eddie was posing, pretending to jump into a water fountain the park. It was the day they’d held hands in public for the first time.

He still had trouble saying that he was gay out loud, and when he didn't have his phone handy, though, he almost always did, because Eddie was almost always on call with him, he liked to call Eddie his partner. Eddie didn't mind, he referred to them as partners too. Richie didn't really know when the word "boyfriend" wouldn't make him want to throw up, but that was okay. He was coping, going to therapy, taking his medication. Slowly, his world was aligning in a way it should have a long time ago. 

Eddie barely used his inhaler at all anymore. He finally told Richie everything about his mother, how she’d made him believe he was sick his entire life, how he’d been dependent on her, how he still haunts her, hearing her voice telling him perfectly normal things will make him sick or get him hurt. And Richie tells him that it’s okay, and they cuddle, and Richie thinks that it’s time Eddie doesn’t have to be the strong one for the both of them anymore. 

That night, they were laying on Eddie's bed. Richie still had his claim on the guestroom, just in case he needed an escape, but so far, that hadn't happened. They did a lot of lying in the bed together, pressed close, lazily kissing each other wherever they could reach. Richie had missed out on so many good things, he wouldn't miss out on Eddie. And he never got tired of listening to Eddie talk. 

"Who were you trying to call that day?" he asked. He'd been wondering for a long time, but bringing that day up always upset Eddie. For good reason. Now, though, he felt he could talk to Eddie about anything. "Y'know, the day you got me instead?" 

"You mean, the day my life changed for the better?" Eddie replied, kissing the top of his head. Richie snorted, but then Eddie was silent for a bit. "Doesn't matter who I was trying to reach," Eddie finally said, cuddling Richie into his side, like he might slip away if he didn't hold him tight enough. "I called who I was meant to call." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for sticking around and reading this fic. 
> 
> The name of the fic, as well as the chapter titles, are lyrics from 'Nicotine' by Panic! at the Disco (cuz I'm shit at titles). 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked :) And you can come cry with me about reddie at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/floating-catastrophe


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